---
title: ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ said Taffy, as she thought of her picture-le… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ said Taffy, as she thought of her picture-letter and the mud in the Stranger-man’s hair. Who acts: 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 161

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‘Don’t make fun of me,’ said Taffy, as she thought of her picture-letter and the mud in the Stranger-man’s hair.

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**Who acts:** Taffy · **What happens:** not make, say, think, letter · **To what, where:** fun, hair · **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 (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:pg2781:10:161
# text = ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ said Taffy, as she thought of her picture-letter and the mud in the Stranger-man’s hair.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
5	fun	fun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
18	picture	picture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	letter	letter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	mud	mud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
26	Stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	’s	's	PART	POS	_	28	case	_	_
30	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **make** | infinitive · do-support |  | fun of me |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset fun=Product |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  | of Taffy's picture letter in the Stranger man's hair and the mud | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **letter** |  | Taffy |  |  | the Stranger man's hair |  |  | nom letter «communication transitive»: poss=agent in=place |

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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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