---
title: ‘That was the very thing I was thinking just now,’ said Stickly-Pric… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘That was the very thing I was thinking just now,’ said Stickly-Prickly. Who acts: That, I. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Beginning of the Armadillos, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, The Beginning of the Armadillos, sentence 129

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‘That was the very thing I was thinking just now,’ said Stickly-Prickly.

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**Who acts:** That, I · **What happens:** be, think, say · **To what, where:** thing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Beginning of the Armadillos. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, I), 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:pg2781:8:129
# text = ‘That was the very thing I was thinking just now,’ said Stickly-Prickly.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	ccomp	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	acl:relcl	_	_
10	just	just	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	Stickly	stickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	Prickly	prickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | That | the thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past · progressive | I | the thing *not said here* |  |  | now |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot thing=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  | prickly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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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