---
title: It was nothing much, as I say, but it made people feel uncomfortable. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: It was nothing much, as I say, but it made people feel uncomfortable. Who acts: hippopotamus, I, people. 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 41

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It was nothing much, as I say, but it made people feel uncomfortable.

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**Who acts:** hippopotamus, I, people · **What happens:** be, say, make, feel · **To what, where:** nothing, people · **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 (hippopotamus, I, people), 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:pg23661:4:41
# text = It was nothing much, as I say, but it made people feel uncomfortable.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	0	root	_	_
4	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
13	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
14	feel	feel	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	uncomfortable	uncomfortable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | hippopotamus | nothing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **make** | past | hippopotamus | people |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **feel** | infinitive | people *not said here* |  |  |  |  | uncomfortable *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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