---
title: And now for just a little natural history, so that we may not feel t… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And now for just a little natural history, so that we may not feel that we are quite wasting our time. Who acts: we. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 3, sentence 38

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And now for just a little natural history, so that we may not feel that we are quite wasting our time.

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** not feel, waste

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg23661:3:38
# text = And now for just a little natural history, so that we may not feel that we are quite wasting our time.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
3	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
4	just	just	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	natural	natural	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	history	history	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	so	so	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	15	mark	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	fixed	_	_
12	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	feel	feel	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
17	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	wasting	waste	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
21	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **feel** | may | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **waste** | present · progressive | we |  |  |  | time |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Project Gutenberg book 23661 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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