---
title: ‘My gracious!’ said Taffy, ‘what a lot of noise-pictures we’ve made,… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘My gracious!’ said Taffy, ‘what a lot of noise-pictures we’ve made,--carp-mouth, carp-tail, and egg! Who acts: 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 87

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‘My gracious!’ said Taffy, ‘what a lot of noise-pictures we’ve made,--carp-mouth, carp-tail, and egg!

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**Who acts:** Taffy · **What happens:** say, make · **To what, where:** we · **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 (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:pg2781:10:87
# text = ‘My gracious!’ said Taffy, ‘what a lot of noise-pictures we’ve made,--carp-mouth, carp-tail, and egg!
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	gracious	gracious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	ccomp	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	lot	lot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	noise	noise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	pictures	picture	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
17	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’ve	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux:pass	_	_
19	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	carp	carp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
26	carp	carp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	egg	egg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **make** | present · passive |  | we |  |  |  | carp mouth and carp tail *obl* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product |

<!-- .note -->
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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