---
title: And one day he took flour and water and currants and plums and sugar… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: And one day he took flour and water and currants and plums and sugar and things, and made himself one cake which was two feet across and three feet thick. Who acts: Parsee, one cake. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, with its dependency tree and the
---

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# Just so stories, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, sentence 3

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And one day he took flour and water and currants and plums and sugar and things, and made himself one cake which was two feet across and three feet thick.

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**Who acts:** Parsee, one cake · **What happens:** take, make, be · **To what, where:** flour, Parsee, two feet

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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 (Parsee, one cake), 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:pg2781:4:3
# text = And one day he took flour and water and currants and plums and sugar and things, and made himself one cake which was two feet across and three feet thick.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
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=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	flour	flour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	currants	currant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	plums	plum	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	sugar	sugar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
20	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	19	obj	_	_
21	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	22	nummod	_	_
22	cake	cake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
23	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	26	nsubj	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
25	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	26	nummod	_	_
26	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl:unmarked	_	_
27	across	across	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
29	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	30	nummod	_	_
30	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	conj	_	_
31	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	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 | Parsee | flour and water and currants and plums and sugar and things |  |  | day |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flour=Theme |
| 2 | **make** | past | Parsee *not said here* | Parsee |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset himself=Product |
| 3 | **is a** | past | one cake | two feet and three feet |  |  |  | across *property* | tree rules |

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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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