---
title: ‘I couldn’t be sure how to put in the spots,’ said Taffy. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I couldn’t be sure how to put in the spots,’ said Taffy. Who acts: I, Taffy. 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 147

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‘I couldn’t be sure how to put in the spots,’ said Taffy.

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**Who acts:** I, Taffy · **What happens:** not be, put, say · **To what, where:** spots · **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 (I, Taffy), 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:pg2781:10:147
# text = ‘I couldn’t be sure how to put in the spots,’ said Taffy.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
6	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	ccomp	_	_
7	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	spots	spot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | could | I |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **put** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  | the spots |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent in spot=Destination |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that 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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