---
title: There it sat, stroking itself with its feet and stretching its wings… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: There it sat, stroking itself with its feet and stretching its wings, and Harry said: "Why, it's a tiny newt!" Who acts: earwig, Harry. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/5/48/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 5, sentence 48

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There it sat, stroking itself with its feet and stretching its wings, and Harry said: "Why, it's a tiny newt!"

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**Who acts:** earwig, Harry · **What happens:** sit, stroke, stretch, say, be · **To what, where:** earwig, wings, tiny newt · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (earwig, Harry), 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:pg23661:5:48
# text = There it sat, stroking itself with its feet and stretching its wings, and Harry said: "Why, it's a tiny newt!"
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	stroking	stroke	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
6	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	5	obj	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	stretching	stretch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
12	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	Harry	Harry	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	newt	newt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	26	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | earwig |  |  | there |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **stroke** | gerund | earwig *not said here* | earwig |  |  |  | with earwig's feet | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent itself=Experiencer with foot=Instrument |
| 3 | **stretch** | gerund | earwig *not said here* | earwig's wings |  |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent wing=Patient |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Harry |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | earwig | a tiny newt |  |  |  |  | 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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