---
title: We must draw a spotty snake that hisses sh-sh, and we’ll play that t… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: We must draw a spotty snake that hisses sh-sh, and we’ll play that the plain snake only hisses ssss.’ Who acts: We, spotty snake, plain snake. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Alphabet Was Made, 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/pg2781/10/146/)

<!-- 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/) / [Just so stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/) / [How the Alphabet Was Made](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/10/) / 146

# Just so stories, How the Alphabet Was Made, sentence 146

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
We must draw a spotty snake that hisses sh-sh, and we’ll play that the plain snake only hisses ssss.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** We, spotty snake, plain snake · **What happens:** draw, hiss, play · **To what, where:** spotty snake, sh sh, ssss

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (We, spotty snake, plain snake), 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:pg2781:10:146
# text = We must draw a spotty snake that hisses sh-sh, and we’ll play that the plain snake only hisses ssss.’
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	draw	draw	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	spotty	spotty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	snake	snake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
8	hisses	hiss	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
9	sh	sh	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	sh	sh	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’ll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
17	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	plain	plain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	snake	snake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
21	only	only	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	hisses	hiss	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
23	ssss	ssss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **draw** | must | We | a spotty snake |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent snake=Theme |
| 2 | **hiss** | present | a spotty snake | sh sh |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sh=Topic |
| 3 | **play** | future | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **hiss** | present | the plain snake | ssss |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ssss=Topic |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 145](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/10/145/)
- next →: [sentence 147](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/10/147/)
- ↑ back to [How the Alphabet Was Made](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/10/)