---
title: Wouldn't you like to be a Duchess or a Princess, or something like t… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Wouldn't you like to be a Duchess or a Princess, or something like that?" Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 9, sentence 108

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Wouldn't you like to be a Duchess or a Princess, or something like that?"

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** not like, be · **To what, where:** Duchess

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg23661:9:108
# text = Wouldn't you like to be a Duchess or a Princess, or something like that?"
1	Would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Duchess	Duchess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
9	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	8	appos	_	_
15	like	like	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **like** | would | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **is a** | to-infinitive |  | a Duchess or a Princess |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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