---
title: "I wonder what this old thing's for," said Harry. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "I wonder what this old thing's for," said Harry. Who acts: Harry. 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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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 6, sentence 112

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"I wonder what this old thing's for," said Harry.

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**Who acts:** Harry · **What happens:** wonder, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (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:pg23661:6:112
# text = "I wonder what this old thing's for," said Harry.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	wonder	wonder	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	obj	_	_
5	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	's	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Harry	Harry	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wonder** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | present | Harry |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Harry |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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