---
title: ‘It’s as plain as the nose on this Stranger-man’s face,’ she said. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘It’s as plain as the nose on this Stranger-man’s face,’ she said. Who acts: hair, Teshumai. 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.
---

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# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 108

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‘It’s as plain as the nose on this Stranger-man’s face,’ she said.

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**Who acts:** hair, Teshumai · **What happens:** be, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (hair, Teshumai), 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:pg2781:9:108
# text = ‘It’s as plain as the nose on this Stranger-man’s face,’ she said.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	as	as	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	plain	plain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	ccomp	_	_
6	as	as	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
10	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	det	_	_
11	Stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’s	's	PART	POS	_	13	case	_	_
15	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | hair |  |  |  |  | as the nose on this Stranger man's face; plain *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Teshumai |  |  |  |  |  | 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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