---
title: "We can't be worse off than we are," said Harry, "with a dragon wait… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "We can't be worse off than we are," said Harry, "with a dragon waiting for us outside. Who acts: We, Harry, dragon. 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/pg23661/6/82/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 6, sentence 82

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"We can't be worse off than we are," said Harry, "with a dragon waiting for us outside.

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**Who acts:** We, Harry, dragon · **What happens:** not be, be, say, wait · **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, Harry, dragon), 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:pg23661:6:82
# text = "We can't be worse off than we are," said Harry, "with a dragon waiting for us outside.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
6	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	13	nsubj	_	_
7	off	off	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	are	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	Harry	Harry	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	_
20	waiting	wait	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	acl	_	_
21	for	for	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	_
23	outside	outside	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | can | We |  |  |  |  | bad *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** *in a quote* | present | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Harry |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **wait** *in a quote* | gerund | a dragon *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for us; outside *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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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