---
title: And Pau Amma said, ‘I do not choose yet, for, all soft as I am, thes… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: And Pau Amma said, ‘I do not choose yet, for, all soft as I am, these gifts would not help me. Who acts: Pau, I, gifts. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Crab That Played With the Sea, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/11/108/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Just so stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/) / [The Crab That Played With the Sea](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/11/) / 108

# Just so stories, The Crab That Played With the Sea, sentence 108

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And Pau Amma said, ‘I do not choose yet, for, all soft as I am, these gifts would not help me.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Pau, I, gifts · **What happens:** say, not choose, be, not help · **To what, where:** me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Crab That Played With the Sea. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Pau, I, gifts), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2781:11:108
# text = And Pau Amma said, ‘I do not choose yet, for, all soft as I am, these gifts would not help me.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	Pau	Pau	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	Amma	Amma	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	flat	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	choose	choose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
11	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	16	det	_	_
16	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	_
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	_
19	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	22	det	_	_
22	gifts	gift	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nsubj	_	_
23	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
25	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
26	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Pau |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **choose** | present · do-support | I |  |  |  | yet |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | present | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | as I; soft *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **help** | would | this gifts |  | me |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Beneficiary |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 107](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/11/107/)
- next →: [sentence 109](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/11/109/)
- ↑ back to [The Crab That Played With the Sea](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/11/)