---
title: ‘My only visitor this morning was the poor fellow that you are tryin… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘My only visitor this morning was the poor fellow that you are trying to choke. Who acts: only visitor, you. 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 143

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‘My only visitor this morning was the poor fellow that you are trying to choke.

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**Who acts:** only visitor, you · **What happens:** be, try, choke · **To what, where:** poor fellow, that

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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 (only visitor, you), 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:pg2781:9:143
# text = ‘My only visitor this morning was the poor fellow that you are trying to choke.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
3	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	visitor	visitor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
5	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	det	_	_
6	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod:unmarked	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	fellow	fellow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
11	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	obj	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	trying	try	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	parataxis	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	choke	choke	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | My only visitor  this morning | the poor fellow |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **try** | present · progressive | you | that |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **choke** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn die-42.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |

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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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