---
title: They joined hands as they came near the fires and danced around in a… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: They joined hands as they came near the fires and danced around in a ring. Who acts: eyes. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 8, 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/pg23661/8/61/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 8, sentence 61

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They joined hands as they came near the fires and danced around in a ring.

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**Who acts:** eyes · **What happens:** join, come, dance around · **To what, where:** hands, fires, ring

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eyes), 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:pg23661:8:61
# text = They joined hands as they came near the fires and danced around in a ring.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	joined	join	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
7	near	near	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	fires	fire	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	danced	dance	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	around	around	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	ring	ring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **join** | past | eyes *= eye* | hands |  |  |  |  | vn mix-22.1-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=Patient |
| 2 | **come** | past | eyes *= eye* |  |  | the fires |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme near fire=Location |
| 3 | **dance around** | past | eyes *= eye* *not said here* |  |  | a ring |  | around *property* | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in ring=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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