---
title: ‘It sounds all rough and edgy, like your shark-tooth saw when you’re… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘It sounds all rough and edgy, like your shark-tooth saw when you’re cutting out a plank for the canoe,’ said Taffy. Who acts: ma, 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 260

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‘It sounds all rough and edgy, like your shark-tooth saw when you’re cutting out a plank for the canoe,’ said Taffy.

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**Who acts:** ma, you, Taffy · **What happens:** sound, be, cut out, say · **To what, where:** plank · **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 (ma, 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:pg2781:10:260
# text = ‘It sounds all rough and edgy, like your shark-tooth saw when you’re cutting out a plank for the canoe,’ said Taffy.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sounds	sound	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	all	all	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	rough	rough	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	edgy	edgy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	like	like	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
10	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
11	shark	shark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	tooth	tooth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	saw	saw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
15	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’re	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	ccomp	_	_
18	cutting	cut	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	xcomp	_	_
19	out	out	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	plank	plank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	canoe	canoe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
27	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
28	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sound** | present | ma |  |  |  |  | like your tooth saw; rough *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **does** | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **cut out** | gerund | you *not said here* | a plank |  |  |  | for the canoe | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector plank=Eventuality |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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