---
title: And now there were more moths than have ever been together in this w… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And now there were more moths than have ever been together in this world before, all settling on the sealskin dwarfs. Who acts: more moths, all. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/9/12/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 9, sentence 12

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And now there were more moths than have ever been together in this world before, all settling on the sealskin dwarfs.

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**Who acts:** more moths, all · **What happens:** be, have, settle · **To what, where:** world

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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 (more moths, all), 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:pg23661:9:12
# text = And now there were more moths than have ever been together in this world before, all settling on the sealskin dwarfs.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
3	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
4	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	_
5	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	6	amod	_	_
6	moths	moth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
7	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
8	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
9	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	11	advmod	_	_
10	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	cop	_	_
11	together	together	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	det	_	_
14	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
15	before	before	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	18	nsubj	_	_
18	settling	settle	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	0	root	_	_
19	on	on	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	sealskin	sealskin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	dwarfs	dwarf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | more moths |  |  | there | now |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | present | more moths *not said here* |  |  | this world |  | before *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | participle |  |  |  |  | ever | together *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **settle** | gerund | all |  |  |  |  | on the sealskin dwarfs | vn correspond-36.1 «NP V PP.theme S»: agent=Agent on dwarf=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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