---
title: Stickly-Prickly helped to unlace Tortoise’s back-plates, so that by… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Stickly-Prickly helped to unlace Tortoise’s back-plates, so that by twisting and straining Slow-and-Solid actually managed to curl up a tiddy wee bit. Who acts: Stickly Prickly. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Beginning of the Armadillos, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# Just so stories, The Beginning of the Armadillos, sentence 98

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Stickly-Prickly helped to unlace Tortoise’s back-plates, so that by twisting and straining Slow-and-Solid actually managed to curl up a tiddy wee bit.

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**Who acts:** Stickly Prickly · **What happens:** help, unlace, twist, strain, manage, curl up · **To what, where:** back plates, tiddy wee bit

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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 (Stickly Prickly), 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:pg2781:8:98
# text = Stickly-Prickly helped to unlace Tortoise’s back-plates, so that by twisting and straining Slow-and-Solid actually managed to curl up a tiddy wee bit.
1	Stickly	stickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	Prickly	prickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	nsubj	_	_
4	helped	help	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	unlace	unlace	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	Tortoise	Tortoise	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’s	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	plates	plate	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	so	so	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	16	mark	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	fixed	_	_
15	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
16	twisting	twist	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	straining	strain	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	conj	_	_
19	Slow	slow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	Solid	solid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	_
24	actually	actually	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	managed	manage	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	23	advcl	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	curl	curl	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	xcomp	_	_
28	up	up	ADP	RP	_	27	compound:prt	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
30	tiddy	tiddy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	compound	_	_
31	wee	wee	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **help** | past | Stickly Prickly |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **unlace** | to-infinitive | Stickly Prickly *not said here* | Tortoise's back plates |  |  |  |  | vn disassemble-23.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent plate=Patient |
| 3 | **twist** | gerund | Stickly Prickly *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **strain** | gerund | Stickly Prickly *not said here* |  |  |  |  | slow *property* | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **manage** | participle | Stickly Prickly *not said here* |  |  |  |  | actually *property* | vn succeed-74-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 6 | **curl up** | to-infinitive | Stickly Prickly *not said here* | a tiddy wee bit |  |  |  |  | vn coil-9.6-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Theme |

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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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