---
title: Presently the cab drew up near the pillar, and there was the dragon,… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Presently the cab drew up near the pillar, and there was the dragon, his ugly purple head shining in the sun, and his ugly purple mouth half open. Who acts: cab, ugly purple head. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/102/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 4, sentence 102

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Presently the cab drew up near the pillar, and there was the dragon, his ugly purple head shining in the sun, and his ugly purple mouth half open.

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**Who acts:** cab, ugly purple head · **What happens:** draw up, be, shine · **To what, where:** pillar, dragon, sun

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cab, ugly purple head), 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:pg23661:4:102
# text = Presently the cab drew up near the pillar, and there was the dragon, his ugly purple head shining in the sun, and his ugly purple mouth half open.
1	Presently	presently	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	cab	cab	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	drew	draw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	up	up	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	near	near	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	pillar	pillar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	12	expl	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
17	ugly	ugly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
18	purple	purple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	_
20	shining	shine	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	acl	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
26	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
27	ugly	ugly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
28	purple	purple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	compound	_	_
30	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	31	compound	_	_
31	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **draw up** | past | the cab |  |  | the pillar |  | presently *property* | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past |  | the dragon |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **shine** | gerund | cab's ugly purple head *not said here* |  |  | the sun |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in sun=Location |

<!-- .note -->
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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