---
title: He had run hard, so that he panted, and his legs were scratched with… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He had run hard, so that he panted, and his legs were scratched with brambles, but he still tried to be polite. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the First Letter Was Written, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/105/)

<!-- 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/) / [How the First Letter Was Written](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/) / 105

# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 105

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He had run hard, so that he panted, and his legs were scratched with brambles, but he still tried to be polite.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** run, pant, scratch, try, be · **To what, where:** legs

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the First Letter Was Written. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg2781:9:105
# text = He had run hard, so that he panted, and his legs were scratched with brambles, but he still tried to be polite.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	run	run	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	hard	hard	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	so	so	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	9	mark	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	6	fixed	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	panted	pant	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux:pass	_	_
15	scratched	scratch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	advcl	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	brambles	bramble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	still	still	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
24	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	cop	_	_
25	polite	polite	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **run** | past · perfect | man |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **pant** | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **scratch** | past · passive |  | man's legs |  |  |  | with brambles | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient with bramble=Instrument |
| 4 | **try** | past | man |  |  |  | still |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 5 | **is** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | polite *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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 104](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/104/)
- next →: [sentence 106](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/106/)
- ↑ back to [How the First Letter Was Written](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/)