---
title: And the magician was safe between the Belgian hares, and couldn't se… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And the magician was safe between the Belgian hares, and couldn't see anything but darkness, or do anything but choke. Who acts: magician. 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/pg23661/4/132/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 4, sentence 132

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And the magician was safe between the Belgian hares, and couldn't see anything but darkness, or do anything but choke.

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**Who acts:** magician · **What happens:** be, not see, do · **To what, where:** anything

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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 (magician), 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:pg23661:4:132
# text = And the magician was safe between the Belgian hares, and couldn't see anything but darkness, or do anything but choke.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	magician	magician	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	safe	safe	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	between	between	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	Belgian	Belgian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	hares	hare	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	see	see	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
15	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	14	obj	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	do	do	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
21	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	20	obj	_	_
22	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	choke	choke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the magician |  |  |  |  | between the Belgian hares; safe *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **see** | could |  | anything |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer anything=Stimulus |
| 3 | **do** | infinitive |  | anything |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Eventuality |

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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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