---
title: "You oughtn't to speak to my mother like that," said the Princess. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "You oughtn't to speak to my mother like that," said the Princess. Who acts: You, Princess. 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 142

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"You oughtn't to speak to my mother like that," said the Princess.

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**Who acts:** You, Princess · **What happens:** not speak, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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, Princess), 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:pg23661:9:142
# text = "You oughtn't to speak to my mother like that," said the Princess.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	like	like	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* *in a quote* | ought | You |  |  |  |  | to my mother like that | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to mother=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Princess |  |  |  |  |  | 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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