---
title: He could not speak, but like all other animals, he could understand… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: He could not speak, but like all other animals, he could understand well enough when he liked. Who acts: dragon. 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 89

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He could not speak, but like all other animals, he could understand well enough when he liked.

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**Who acts:** dragon · **What happens:** not speak, understand, like · **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 (dragon), 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:pg23661:3:89
# text = He could not speak, but like all other animals, he could understand well enough when he liked.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
7	like	like	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	10	det	_	_
9	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
15	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	14	advmod	_	_
16	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
17	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	liked	like	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* | could | dragon |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **understand** | could | dragon |  |  |  |  | like all other animals; well *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **like** | past | dragon |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |

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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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