---
title: And the Animals said, ‘O Eldest Magician, what shall we play at?’ an… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: And the Animals said, ‘O Eldest Magician, what shall we play at?’ and he said, ‘I will show you. Who acts: Animals, we, Magician, I. 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.
---

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# Just so stories, The Crab That Played With the Sea, sentence 3

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And the Animals said, ‘O Eldest Magician, what shall we play at?’ and he said, ‘I will show you.

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**Who acts:** Animals, we, Magician, I · **What happens:** say, play, show · **To what, where:** Eldest Magician, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Animals, we, Magician, 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:pg2781:11:3
# text = And the Animals said, ‘O Eldest Magician, what shall we play at?’ and he said, ‘I will show you.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	9	discourse	_	_
8	Eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	9	amod	_	_
9	Magician	Magician	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	_
12	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
24	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	show	show	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	ccomp	_	_
26	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	25	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	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 | the Animals |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **play** | shall | we | Eldest Magician |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Magician |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **show** | future | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |

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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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