---
title: But of course nobody heard him except the Princess's uncle, and he w… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: But of course nobody heard him except the Princess's uncle, and he was a magician, and accustomed to listening at doors. Who acts: nobody, Rotundia. 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/pg23661/4/13/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 4, sentence 13

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But of course nobody heard him except the Princess's uncle, and he was a magician, and accustomed to listening at doors.

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**Who acts:** nobody, Rotundia · **What happens:** hear, be, accustom, listen · **To what, where:** Rotundia, magician

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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 (nobody, Rotundia), 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:pg23661:4:13
# text = But of course nobody heard him except the Princess's uncle, and he was a magician, and accustomed to listening at doors.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	of	of	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	5	advmod	_	_
3	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	fixed	_	_
4	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	5	nsubj	_	_
5	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	except	except	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	's	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	uncle	uncle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	magician	magician	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	accustomed	accustom	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
21	to	to	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
22	listening	listen	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	20	advcl	_	_
23	at	at	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	doors	door	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | nobody | Rotundia |  |  |  | except the Princess's uncle | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is a** | past | Rotundia | a magician |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **accustom** | participle | nobody *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **listen** | gerund | nobody *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at doors | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at door=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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