---
title: ‘Then s’pose we draw a thin round egg, and pretend it’s a frog that… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Then s’pose we draw a thin round egg, and pretend it’s a frog that hasn’t eaten anything for years.’ Who acts: you, sound, frog. 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 178

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‘Then s’pose we draw a thin round egg, and pretend it’s a frog that hasn’t eaten anything for years.’

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**Who acts:** you, sound, frog · **What happens:** s'pose, draw, pretend, be, not eat · **To what, where:** we, thin round egg, frog, anything

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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 (you, sound, frog), 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:pg2781:10:178
# text = ‘Then s’pose we draw a thin round egg, and pretend it’s a frog that hasn’t eaten anything for years.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
3	s’pose	s'pose	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	draw	draw	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	thin	thin	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
8	round	round	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	egg	egg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	pretend	pretend	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	frog	frog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	xcomp	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
18	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	16	acl:relcl	_	_
21	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	20	obj	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **s'pose** | imperative | you *not said here* | we |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **draw** | infinitive | you *not said here* | a thin round egg |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent egg=Theme |
| 3 | **pretend** | infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is a** | present | sound | a frog |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **not** **eat** | present · perfect | a frog | anything |  |  | year |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Patient |

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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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