---
title: But before long these specimens began to seem less valuable. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: But before long these specimens began to seem less valuable. Who acts: long. 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 54

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But before long these specimens began to seem less valuable.

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**Who acts:** long · **What happens:** begin, seem

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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 (long), 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:pg23661:5:54
# text = But before long these specimens began to seem less valuable.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	before	before	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	nsubj	_	_
4	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	specimens	specimen	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
6	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	seem	seem	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	less	less	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	10	advmod	_	_
10	valuable	valuable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | long |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **seem** | to-infinitive | long *not said here* |  |  |  |  | valuable *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=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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