---
title: ‘I meant I was thinking, and didn’t want to be disturbed.’ — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I meant I was thinking, and didn’t want to be disturbed.’ Who acts: I. 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 92

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‘I meant I was thinking, and didn’t want to be disturbed.’

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** mean, think, not want, disturb · **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 (I), 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:pg2781:10:92
# text = ‘I meant I was thinking, and didn’t want to be disturbed.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	n’t	n't	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	disturbed	disturb	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past · progressive | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **want** | past · do-support | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 4 | **disturb** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive · passive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle» |

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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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