---
title: Can’t a man break his carp-spear without the whole countryside desce… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Can’t a man break his carp-spear without the whole countryside descending on him? Who acts: Ca, whole countryside. 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 135

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Can’t a man break his carp-spear without the whole countryside descending on him?

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**Who acts:** Ca, whole countryside · **What happens:** not break, descend · **To what, where:** carp spear

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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 (Ca, whole countryside), 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:pg2781:9:135
# text = Can’t a man break his carp-spear without the whole countryside descending on him?
1	Ca	Ca	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	break	break	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
7	carp	carp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
10	without	without	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	countryside	countryside	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
14	descending	descend	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	acl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **break** | infinitive | Ca | man's carp spear |  |  |  | without the whole countryside | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer spear=Patient |
| 2 | **descend** | gerund | the whole countryside *not said here* |  |  |  |  | on man | vn meander-47.7-1 «NP V»: 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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