---
title: One by one he took all the beasts and birds and fishes and told them… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: One by one he took all the beasts and birds and fishes and told them what to play at. Who acts: One. 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 8

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One by one he took all the beasts and birds and fishes and told them what to play at.

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**Who acts:** One · **What happens:** take, tell, play · **To what, where:** beasts · **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 (One), 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:pg2781:11:8
# text = One by one he took all the beasts and birds and fishes and told them what to play at.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nsubj	_	_
2	by	by	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	1	nmod	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	8	det:predet	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	beasts	beast	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	conj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	fishes	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	conj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	iobj	_	_
16	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	18	obj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
19	at	at	ADP	IN	_	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | One by one | all beasts and birds and fishes |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent beast=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | One by one *not said here* |  | beasts *= beast* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **play** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Theme |

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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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