---
title: Uncle James was warming to his subject. " — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Uncle James was warming to his subject. " Who acts: Uncle. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/58/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Book of Dragons](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/) / [Opening, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/) / 58

# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 4, sentence 58

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Uncle James was warming to his subject. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Uncle · **What happens:** warm

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Uncle), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg23661:4:58
# text = Uncle James was warming to his subject. "
1	Uncle	uncle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
2	James	James	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	flat	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	warming	warm	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	subject	subject	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **warm** | past · progressive | Uncle |  |  |  |  | to uncle's subject | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 57](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/57/)
- next →: [sentence 59](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/59/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/)