---
title: Then the police stuck up great wood and canvas towers covered with p… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the police stuck up great wood and canvas towers covered with patent glue. Who acts: police. 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 83

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Then the police stuck up great wood and canvas towers covered with patent glue.

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**Who acts:** police · **What happens:** stick up, cover · **To what, where:** great wood, canvas towers

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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 (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:pg23661:5:83
# text = Then the police stuck up great wood and canvas towers covered with patent glue.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	police	police	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	stuck	stick	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	up	up	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	canvas	canvas	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	towers	tower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	conj	_	_
11	covered	cover	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl	_	_
12	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	patent	patent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	glue	glue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stick up** | participle | the police | great wood and canvas towers |  |  | then |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent wood=Theme |
| 2 | **cover** | participle |  | canvas towers *not said here* |  |  |  | with patent glue | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent with glue=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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