---
title: They were thumping him by twos and threes and tens till his eyes tur… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: They were thumping him by twos and threes and tens till his eyes turned round and round. Who acts: sakes, eyes. 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 139

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They were thumping him by twos and threes and tens till his eyes turned round and round.

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**Who acts:** sakes, eyes · **What happens:** thump, turn · **To what, where:** 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 (sakes, eyes), 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:pg2781:9:139
# text = They were thumping him by twos and threes and tens till his eyes turned round and round.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	thumping	thump	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	twos	two	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	threes	three	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	tens	ten	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
11	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
14	turned	turn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
15	round	round	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	round	round	ADV	RB	_	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **thump** | past · progressive | sakes *= sake* | spear |  |  |  | by twos and threes and tens | vn spank-18.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent he=Patient by two=Location |
| 2 | **turn** | past | spear's eyes |  |  |  |  | round *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme 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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