---
title: Tom saw at once what had happened. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Tom saw at once what had happened. Who acts: Tom. 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 83

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Tom saw at once what had happened.

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**Who acts:** Tom · **What happens:** see, happen · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Tom), 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:pg23661:3:83
# text = Tom saw at once what had happened.
1	Tom	Tom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	obl	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | Tom |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **happen** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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