---
title: "What is it, Fido--good little elephant--then?" said Tom, and the sa… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "What is it, Fido--good little elephant--then?" said Tom, and the sagacious animal repeated its former gesture. Who acts: Fido, elephant. 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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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 4, sentence 27

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"What is it, Fido--good little elephant--then?" said Tom, and the sagacious animal repeated its former gesture.

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**Who acts:** Fido, elephant · **What happens:** be, say, repeat, gesture · **To what, where:** Fido, sagacious animal · **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 (Fido, elephant), 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:pg23661:4:27
# text = "What is it, Fido--good little elephant--then?" said Tom, and the sagacious animal repeated its former gesture.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	Fido	Fido	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	elephant	elephant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	Tom	Tom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	sagacious	sagacious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj:pass	_	_
22	repeated	repeat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	conj	_	_
23	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
24	former	former	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	gesture	gesture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | Fido |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Fido |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **repeat** | participle · passive |  | the sagacious animal |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **gesture** |  | elephant |  |  |  |  |  | nom gesture «act intransitive»: poss=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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