---
title: And then they stood still and held their breath with wonder. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And then they stood still and held their breath with wonder. Who acts: children. 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 92

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And then they stood still and held their breath with wonder.

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**Who acts:** children · **What happens:** stand, hold · **To what, where:** breath

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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 (children), 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:pg23661:7:92
# text = And then they stood still and held their breath with wonder.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	still	still	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	wonder	wonder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | children *= child* |  |  |  | then; still |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hold** | past | children *= child* *not said here* | children's breath |  |  |  | with wonder | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent breath=Theme |

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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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