---
title: It would take years and years to bury them, and they could never be… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: It would take years and years to bury them, and they could never be burnt now they are so soaking wet. Who acts: It, dragons. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 6, 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/pg23661/6/109/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 6, sentence 109

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It would take years and years to bury them, and they could never be burnt now they are so soaking wet.

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**Who acts:** It, dragons · **What happens:** take, bury, not burnt, soak · **To what, where:** dragons

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, dragons), 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:pg23661:6:109
# text = It would take years and years to bury them, and they could never be burnt now they are so soaking wet.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	bury	bury	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
14	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	burnt	burnt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	parataxis	_	_
17	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	16	advmod	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	so	so	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	soaking	soak	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	ccomp	_	_
22	wet	wet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | would | It |  |  |  | year |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **bury** | to-infinitive |  | dragons *= dragon* |  |  |  |  | vn put-9.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **burnt** | could · passive |  | dragons *= dragon* |  |  | now |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **soak** | present · progressive | dragons *= dragon* |  |  |  |  | wet *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

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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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