---
title: ONCE upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ONCE upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour. Who acts: hat. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, with its dependency tre
---

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# Just so stories, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, sentence 1

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ONCE upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour.

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**Who acts:** hat · **What happens:** live, reflect, ray · **To what, where:** Parsee, hat, rays, more oriental splendour, sun

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hat), 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:pg2781:4:1
# text = ONCE upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour.
1	ONCE	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	19	advmod	_	_
2	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	uninhabited	uninhabited	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	island	island	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	shores	shore	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	Red	Red	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	Sea	Sea	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
18	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	19	expl	_	_
19	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	Parsee	Parsee	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	from	from	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	hat	hat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	rays	ray	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	nsubj:pass	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	_
30	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	31	aux:pass	_	_
31	reflected	reflect	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	24	acl:relcl	_	_
32	in	in	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	_
33	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	38	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	38	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	than	than	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	35	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	oriental	oriental	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	38	compound	_	_
38	splendour	splendour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | a Parsee |  | hat; there |  | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme parsee=Location |
| 2 | **reflect** | past · passive | hat *not said here* | the rays of the sun |  | more oriental splendour |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **ray** |  |  | the sun |  |  |  |  | nom ray «phenomenon transitive»: of=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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