---
title: What do you mean, sir," he cried, "by intruding on a State function… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: What do you mean, sir," he cried, "by intruding on a State function with your common rabbits and things? Who acts: you, uncle. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/112/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 4, sentence 112

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What do you mean, sir," he cried, "by intruding on a State function with your common rabbits and things?

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**Who acts:** you, uncle · **What happens:** mean, cry, intrude · **To what, where:** sir, State function · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (you, uncle), 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:pg23661:4:112
# text = What do you mean, sir," he cried, "by intruding on a State function with your common rabbits and things?
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	obj	_	_
2	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	sir	sir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
14	intruding	intrude	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	State	State	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	function	function	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
21	common	common	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	rabbits	rabbit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** | present · do-support | you | sir |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* *in a quote* | past | uncle | sir *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sir=Topic |
| 3 | **intrude** | gerund | uncle *not said here* |  |  | a State function |  | with your common rabbits and things | vn reflexive\_appearance-48.1.2 «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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