---
title: ‘I asked him what he had for dinner, and he gave me this to keep.’ — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I asked him what he had for dinner, and he gave me this to keep.’ Who acts: I, Child. 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 94

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‘I asked him what he had for dinner, and he gave me this to keep.’

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**Who acts:** I, Child · **What happens:** ask, have, give, keep · **To what, where:** Child, this, 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, Child), 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:pg2781:6:94
# text = ‘I asked him what he had for dinner, and he gave me this to keep.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	obj	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	iobj	_	_
15	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	obj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | I |  | Child |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **have** | past | Child |  |  |  |  | for dinner | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Patient |
| 3 | **give** | past | Child | this | me |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient this=Theme |
| 4 | **keep** | to-infinitive | Child *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: 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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