---
title: If he had not taken up your attention I should not have grown tired… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: If he had not taken up your attention I should not have grown tired of waiting and run away, and all this would never have happened. Who acts: Man, I, this, your. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Crab That Played With the Sea, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of eve
---

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# Just so stories, The Crab That Played With the Sea, sentence 99

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If he had not taken up your attention I should not have grown tired of waiting and run away, and all this would never have happened.

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**Who acts:** Man, I, this, your · **What happens:** not take up, not grow, wait, run away, not happen, attend · **To what, where:** attention

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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 (Man, I, this, your), 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:pg2781:11:99
# text = If he had not taken up your attention I should not have grown tired of waiting and run away, and all this would never have happened.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	up	up	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	attention	attention	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
10	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
12	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux	_	_
13	grown	grow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
14	tired	tired	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	xcomp	_	_
15	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
16	waiting	wait	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	run	run	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
19	away	away	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
22	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	27	det:predet	_	_
23	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	27	nsubj	_	_
24	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
25	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	27	advmod	_	_
26	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	aux	_	_
27	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **take up** | past · perfect | Man | your attention |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent attention=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **grow** | should · perfect | I |  |  |  |  | tired *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **wait** | gerund | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **run away** | present | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **not** **happen** | would · perfect | this |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **attend** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom attention «cognition intransitive»: poss=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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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