---
title: St. George was beginning to settle down again on his stone slab. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: St. George was beginning to settle down again on his stone slab. Who acts: George. 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 39

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St. George was beginning to settle down again on his stone slab.

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**Who acts:** George · **What happens:** begin, settle down · **To what, where:** stone slab

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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 (George), 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:pg23661:6:39
# text = St. George was beginning to settle down again on his stone slab.
1	St.	St.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nmod:desc	_	_
2	George	George	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	beginning	begin	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	settle	settle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	down	down	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	again	again	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	slab	slab	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past · progressive | George  St. |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **settle down** | to-infinitive | George  St. *not said here* |  |  | George's stone slab | again |  | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: 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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