---
title: One dark evening he came back to all his dear families, and he coile… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: One dark evening he came back to all his dear families, and he coiled up his trunk and said, ‘How do you do?’ Who acts: Child, you. 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 87

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One dark evening he came back to all his dear families, and he coiled up his trunk and said, ‘How do you do?’

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**Who acts:** Child, you · **What happens:** come back, coil up, say, do · **To what, where:** dear families, trunk · **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 (Child, you), 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:pg2781:6:87
# text = One dark evening he came back to all his dear families, and he coiled up his trunk and said, ‘How do you do?’
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
2	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	evening	evening	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	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	back	back	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	11	det:predet	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	families	family	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	coiled	coil	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
16	up	up	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	trunk	trunk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	26	advmod	_	_
24	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
25	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	26	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come back** | past | Child |  |  | Child's dear families | evening |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to family=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **coil up** | past | Child | Child's trunk |  |  |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: agent=Agent trunk=Material |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Child *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **do** | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=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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