---
title: They went very fast, because dragons can go uphill as easily as down. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: They went very fast, because dragons can go uphill as easily as down. Who acts: George, dragons. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/9/41/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Book of Dragons](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/) / [Opening, part 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/9/) / 41

# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 9, sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They went very fast, because dragons can go uphill as easily as down.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** George, dragons · **What happens:** go

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (George, dragons), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg23661:9:41
# text = They went very fast, because dragons can go uphill as easily as down.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	dragons	dragon	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
10	uphill	uphill	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
11	as	as	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	easily	easily	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
13	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	down	down	ADV	RB	_	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | George |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **go** | can | dragons |  |  |  |  | easily *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/9/40/)
- next →: [sentence 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/9/42/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/9/)