---
title: ‘Hadn’t we better put a little bit of stick or something between eac… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Hadn’t we better put a little bit of stick or something between each word, so’s they won’t rub up against each other and jostle, same as if they were carps?’ Who acts: we, stick. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Alphabet Was Made, with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

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# Just so stories, How the Alphabet Was Made, sentence 272

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‘Hadn’t we better put a little bit of stick or something between each word, so’s they won’t rub up against each other and jostle, same as if they were carps?’

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**Who acts:** we, stick · **What happens:** not have, put, not rub up, jostle, be · **To what, where:** little bit, each, same

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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, stick), 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:pg2781:10:272
# text = ‘Hadn’t we better put a little bit of stick or something between each word, so’s they won’t rub up against each other and jostle, same as if they were carps?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
4	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	xcomp	_	_
6	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl:unmarked	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
12	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	9	conj	_	_
14	between	between	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	16	det	_	_
16	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	so	so	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’s	's	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	wo	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	rub	rub	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
24	up	up	ADP	RP	_	23	compound:prt	_	_
25	against	against	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	23	obl	_	_
27	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	fixed	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
29	jostle	jostle	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
31	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	obj	_	_
32	as	as	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
33	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	36	mark	_	_
34	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	36	nsubj	_	_
35	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	36	cop	_	_
36	carps	carp	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **have** | past | we *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **put** | past | we | a little bit of stick |  |  |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **rub up** | future | stick |  |  | each |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme against each=Destination |
| 4 | **jostle** | present | we *not said here* | same |  |  |  |  | vn push-12-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent same=Theme |
| 5 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | stick |  |  |  |  | as carps | tree rules |

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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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