---
title: And he had a friend, a Slow-Solid Tortoise, who lived on the banks o… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: And he had a friend, a Slow-Solid Tortoise, who lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon, eating green lettuces and things. Who acts: Beloved, Solid Tortoise. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Beginning of the Armadillos, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/3/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Just so stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/) / [The Beginning of the Armadillos](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/) / 3

# Just so stories, The Beginning of the Armadillos, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And he had a friend, a Slow-Solid Tortoise, who lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon, eating green lettuces and things.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Beloved, Solid Tortoise · **What happens:** have, live, eat · **To what, where:** friend, banks, green lettuces

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Beloved, Solid Tortoise), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2781:8:3
# text = And he had a friend, a Slow-Solid Tortoise, who lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon, eating green lettuces and things.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
8	Slow	slow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Solid	solid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	Tortoise	tortoise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	banks	bank	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	turbid	turbid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	Amazon	amazon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
23	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
24	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	lettuces	lettuce	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Beloved | a friend and a Solid Tortoise |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent friend=Patient |
| 2 | **live** | past | a Solid Tortoise |  |  | the banks of the turbid Amazon |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on bank=Location |
| 3 | **eat** | gerund | a Solid Tortoise *not said here* | green lettuces and things |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lettuce=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/4/)
- ↑ back to [The Beginning of the Armadillos](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/)