---
title: "They said the _lawn_," said Jane. " — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "They said the _lawn_," said Jane. " Who acts: George, Jane. 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/pg23661/7/76/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 7, sentence 76

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"They said the \_lawn\_," said Jane. "

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**Who acts:** George, Jane · **What happens:** say · **To what, where:** lawn · **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 (George, Jane), 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:pg23661:7:76
# text = "They said the _lawn_," said Jane. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	lawn	lawn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	Jane	Jane	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | George | the lawn |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent lawn=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Jane |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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