---
title: The witch was sitting by a fire of sticks, stirring something bubbly… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: The witch was sitting by a fire of sticks, stirring something bubbly in a shiny copper cauldron. Who acts: witch. 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 65

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The witch was sitting by a fire of sticks, stirring something bubbly in a shiny copper cauldron.

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**Who acts:** witch · **What happens:** sit, stir, fire · **To what, where:** something, shiny copper cauldron, sticks

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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 (witch), 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:pg23661:9:65
# text = The witch was sitting by a fire of sticks, stirring something bubbly in a shiny copper cauldron.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	stirring	stir	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
12	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	11	obj	_	_
13	bubbly	bubbly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	shiny	shiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	copper	copper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	cauldron	cauldron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | the witch |  |  |  |  | by a fire of sticks | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent by fire=Location |
| 2 | **stir** | gerund | the witch *not said here* | something |  | a shiny copper cauldron |  | bubbly *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus something=Experiencer |
| 3 | **fire** |  |  | sticks |  |  |  |  | nom fire «event transitive»: of=patient |

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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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