---
title: But suddenly the silence was shattered and a cry rang out over the s… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: But suddenly the silence was shattered and a cry rang out over the snow. Who acts: cry. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 7, 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/pg23661/7/109/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 7, sentence 109

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But suddenly the silence was shattered and a cry rang out over the snow.

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**Who acts:** cry · **What happens:** shatter, ring out · **To what, where:** silence, snow

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cry), 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:pg23661:7:109
# text = But suddenly the silence was shattered and a cry rang out over the snow.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	silence	silence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	shattered	shatter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	cry	cry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	rang	ring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
11	out	out	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	over	over	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shatter** | past · passive |  | the silence |  |  |  | suddenly *property* | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **ring out** | past | a cry |  |  | the snow |  | out *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over snow=Location |

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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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