---
title: He took the Beaver--All-the-Beaver-there-was and said, ‘Play at bein… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He took the Beaver--All-the-Beaver-there-was and said, ‘Play at being a Beaver,’ and All-the Beaver-there-was played. Who acts: Magician, All. 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 5

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He took the Beaver--All-the-Beaver-there-was and said, ‘Play at being a Beaver,’ and All-the Beaver-there-was played.

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**Who acts:** Magician, All · **What happens:** take, say, play, be · **To what, where:** Beaver · **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 (Magician, All), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg2781:775`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2781:11:5
# text = He took the Beaver--All-the-Beaver-there-was and said, ‘Play at being a Beaver,’ and All-the Beaver-there-was played.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	Beaver	Beaver	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	All	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	4	appos	_	_
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	_
10	Beaver	Beaver	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	flat	_	_
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	_
12	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	flat	_	_
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	flat	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	_
19	Play	play	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
20	at	at	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
21	being	be	AUX	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	23	cop	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	Beaver	Beaver	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	advcl	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
27	All	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	35	nsubj	_	_
28	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	27	punct	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	Beaver	Beaver	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	27	flat	_	_
31	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	30	punct	_	_
32	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	27	flat	_	_
33	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	32	punct	_	_
34	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	flat	_	_
35	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | Magician |  | the Beaver |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument beaver=Destination |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Magician *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **play** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | gerund |  | a Beaver |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **play** | past | All |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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