---
title: ‘I don’t believe you’ve brought my Daddy’s black-handled spear after… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I don’t believe you’ve brought my Daddy’s black-handled spear after all,’ said Taffy. Who acts: I, Taffy. 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 137

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‘I don’t believe you’ve brought my Daddy’s black-handled spear after all,’ said Taffy.

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**Who acts:** I, Taffy · **What happens:** not believe, bring, handle, say · **To what, where:** you, handled spear · **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 (I, Taffy), 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:pg2781:9:137
# text = ‘I don’t believe you’ve brought my Daddy’s black-handled spear after all,’ said Taffy.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	ccomp	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’ve	've	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
8	brought	bring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	Daddy	Daddy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’s	's	PART	POS	_	10	case	_	_
12	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	handled	handle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	amod	_	_
15	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
16	after	after	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
20	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
21	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **believe** | present · do-support | I | you |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer you=Stimulus |
| 2 | **bring** | past | I *not said here* | my Daddy's handled spear |  |  | after all |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent spear=Theme |
| 3 | **handle** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn hold-15.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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