---
title: He had never before thought it curious. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: He had never before thought it curious. Who acts: father. 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 26

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He had never before thought it curious.

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**Who acts:** father · **What happens:** have, not think · **To what, where:** thing

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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 (father), 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:pg23661:5:26
# text = He had never before thought it curious.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	before	before	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | father |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **think** *speech: other* | past | father *not said here* | thing |  |  |  | before, curious *property* | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot it=Theme |

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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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