---
title: I Keep six honest serving-men: (They taught me all I knew) Their nam… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: I Keep six honest serving-men: (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Where and When And How and Why and Who. Who acts: I, families, names. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant’s Child, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 102

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I Keep six honest serving-men: (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Where and When And How and Why and Who.

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**Who acts:** I, families, names · **What happens:** keep, teach, know, be, name · **To what, where:** six honest serving men, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant’s Child. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, families, names), 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:pg2781:6:102
# text = I Keep six honest serving-men: (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Where and When And How and Why and Who.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	Keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
3	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
4	honest	honest	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
5	serving	serving	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
9	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	taught	teach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	advmod	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	15	punct	_	_
17	Their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	names	name	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
19	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	ccomp	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	Where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	20	conj	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	20	conj	_	_
25	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
26	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	28	advmod	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
28	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	20	acl:relcl	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
30	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	28	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** | infinitive | I | six honest serving men |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Theme |
| 2 | **teach** *speech: other* | past | families *= family* |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 3 | **know** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **is a** | present | families's names |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **name** |  | families *= family* |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: 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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