---
title: ‘Shu-ya-las ya-maru,’ said Taffy, reading it out sound by sound. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Shu-ya-las ya-maru,’ said Taffy, reading it out sound by sound. Who acts: ya las, ya maru. 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 276

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‘Shu-ya-las ya-maru,’ said Taffy, reading it out sound by sound.

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**Who acts:** ya las, ya maru · **What happens:** maru, say, read out · **To what, where:** maru · **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 (ya las, ya maru), 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:pg2781:10:276
# text = ‘Shu-ya-las ya-maru,’ said Taffy, reading it out sound by sound.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Shu	shu	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	ya	ya	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	las	la	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
7	ya	ya	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	maru	maru	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	reading	read	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
18	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	by	by	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **maru** |  | ya las |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | ya maru |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **read out** | gerund | ya maru *not said here* | maru |  |  |  | by sound | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent it=Recipient sound=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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