---
title: ‘Don’t you see?’ said Taffy, scratching away on the bark. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Don’t you see?’ said Taffy, scratching away on the bark. Who acts: you, 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 26

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‘Don’t you see?’ said Taffy, scratching away on the bark.

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**Who acts:** you, Taffy · **What happens:** not do, see, say, scratch away · **To what, where:** bark · **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 (you, 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:pg2781:10:26
# text = ‘Don’t you see?’ said Taffy, scratching away on the bark.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	scratching	scratch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
12	away	away	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	bark	bark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **do** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **see** | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **scratch away** | gerund | Taffy *not said here* |  |  | the bark |  | away *property* | vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent on bark=Location |

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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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