---
title: "One could but try," the sportsman replied, and he held out his hand. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "One could but try," the sportsman replied, and he held out his hand. Who acts: One, sportsman. 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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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 7, sentence 123

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"One could but try," the sportsman replied, and he held out his hand.

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**Who acts:** One, sportsman · **What happens:** try, reply, hold out · **To what, where:** hand · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (One, sportsman), 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:pg23661:7:123
# text = "One could but try," the sportsman replied, and he held out his hand.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	One	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	sportsman	sportsman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
15	out	out	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** *in a quote* | could | One |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the sportsman |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hold out** | past | sportsman | sportsman's hand |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=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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