---
title: IN the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale,… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: IN the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. Who acts: Best Beloved, Beloved. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Whale Got His Throat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, How the Whale Got His Throat, sentence 1

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IN the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes.

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**Who acts:** Best Beloved, Beloved · **What happens:** be, eat · **To what, where:** Whale, sea, fishes

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Whale Got His Throat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Best Beloved, Beloved), 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:pg2781:2:1
# text = IN the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes.
1	IN	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	3	advmod	_	_
6	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
10	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	13	vocative	_	_
11	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
12	Best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	13	amod	_	_
13	Beloved	Beloved	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	16	expl	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	Whale	whale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
23	fishes	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | my Best Beloved | a Whale |  | the sea |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **eat** | past | Beloved | fishes |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fish=Patient |

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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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