---
title: Taffy took a marrow-bone and sat mousy-quiet for ten whole minutes,… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Taffy took a marrow-bone and sat mousy-quiet for ten whole minutes, while her Daddy scratched on pieces of birch-bark with a shark’s tooth. Who acts: Taffy, Daddy. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Alphabet Was Made, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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# Just so stories, How the Alphabet Was Made, sentence 11

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Taffy took a marrow-bone and sat mousy-quiet for ten whole minutes, while her Daddy scratched on pieces of birch-bark with a shark’s tooth.

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**Who acts:** Taffy, Daddy · **What happens:** take, sit, scratch · **To what, where:** marrow bone, pieces

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Alphabet Was Made. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Taffy, Daddy), 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:pg2781:10:11
# text = Taffy took a marrow-bone and sat mousy-quiet for ten whole minutes, while her Daddy scratched on pieces of birch-bark with a shark’s tooth.
1	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	marrow	marrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	bone	bone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	mousy	mousy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	quiet	quiet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	_
12	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
14	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	minutes	minute	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	Daddy	Daddy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
20	scratched	scratch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
24	birch	birch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	bark	bark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
27	with	with	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
28	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	shark	shark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’s	's	PART	POS	_	29	case	_	_
31	tooth	tooth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | Taffy | a marrow bone |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bone=Theme |
| 2 | **sit** | past | Taffy *not said here* |  |  |  | minute | quiet *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **scratch** | past | Taffy's Daddy |  |  | pieces of birch bark |  | with a shark's tooth | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V PP PP»: agent=Agent with tooth=Instrument |

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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:** «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, Project Gutenberg book 2781 (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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