---
title: You can't wake people if you don't believe in them, can you?" — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: You can't wake people if you don't believe in them, can you?" Who acts: You. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 5, sentence 115

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You can't wake people if you don't believe in them, can you?"

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**Who acts:** You · **What happens:** not wake, not believe · **To what, where:** people

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You), 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:pg23661:5:115
# text = You can't wake people if you don't believe in them, can you?"
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	wake	wake	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **wake** | can | You | people |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent people=Patient |
| 2 | **not** **believe** *a condition, not said to happen* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  | in people | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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