---
title: Snake and egg,’ said Taffy ‘So that means dinner’s ready. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Snake and egg,’ said Taffy ‘So that means dinner’s ready. Who acts: Snake, that. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Alphabet Was Made, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, How the Alphabet Was Made, sentence 132

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Snake and egg,’ said Taffy ‘So that means dinner’s ready.

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**Who acts:** Snake, that · **What happens:** say, mean · **To what, where:** Taffy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Snake, that), 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:pg2781:10:132
# text = Snake and egg,’ said Taffy ‘So that means dinner’s ready.
1	Snake	snake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
2	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	egg	egg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	So	so	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
10	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	11	nsubj	_	_
11	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
12	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
14	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Snake and egg | Taffy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **mean** | present | that |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |

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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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