---
title: "We might hide in the church till it is dark," he said, "and then--" — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "We might hide in the church till it is dark," he said, "and then--" Who acts: We, much, 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/6/54/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 6, sentence 54

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"We might hide in the church till it is dark," he said, "and then--"

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**Who acts:** We, much, Harry · **What happens:** hide, be, say · **To what, where:** church · **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 (We, much, 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:pg23661:6:54
# text = "We might hide in the church till it is dark," he said, "and then--"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	hide	hide	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	church	church	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
11	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hide** *in a quote* | might | We |  |  | the church |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | much |  |  |  |  | dark *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Harry |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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