---
title: And we’re the first people in all the world who’ve ever tried to do… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: And we’re the first people in all the world who’ve ever tried to do it, Taffimai!’ Who acts: we, first people. 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 229

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And we’re the first people in all the world who’ve ever tried to do it, Taffimai!’

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**Who acts:** we, first people · **What happens:** 're, try, do · **To what, where:** first people, world

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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 (we, first people), 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:pg2781:10:229
# text = And we’re the first people in all the world who’ve ever tried to do it, Taffimai!’
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’re	're	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	6	amod	_	_
6	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	10	det:predet	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’ve	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	14	advmod	_	_
14	tried	try	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	acl:relcl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
19	Taffimai	Taffimai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **'re** | past | we | the first people |  | all world |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **try** | present · perfect | the first people |  |  |  | ever |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the first people *not said here* | world |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |

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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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