---
title: Couldn't we go and see them?" — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Couldn't we go and see them?" Who acts: we. 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 65

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Couldn't we go and see them?"

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** not go, see · **To what, where:** Bories

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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 (we), 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:pg23661:7:65
# text = Couldn't we go and see them?"
1	Could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **go** | could | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | infinitive | we *not said here* | Bories *= bory* |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer they=Stimulus |

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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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