---
title: Everyone thought of themselves--and they said, "What is the simple p… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Everyone thought of themselves--and they said, "What is the simple precaution?" Who acts: Everyone, police. 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 61

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Everyone thought of themselves--and they said, "What is the simple precaution?"

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**Who acts:** Everyone, police · **What happens:** think, say, be · **To what, where:** simple precaution · **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 (Everyone, police), 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:pg23661:4:61
# text = Everyone thought of themselves--and they said, "What is the simple precaution?"
1	Everyone	everyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	2	nsubj	_	_
2	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	nsubj	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	simple	simple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	precaution	precaution	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Everyone |  |  |  |  | of police | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | police |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | the simple precaution |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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