---
title: ‘He came with a horrible picture,’ said the Head Chief,--‘a picture… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘He came with a horrible picture,’ said the Head Chief,--‘a picture that showed you were full of spears.’ Who acts: Tegumai, picture, Head Chief. 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 145

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‘He came with a horrible picture,’ said the Head Chief,--‘a picture that showed you were full of spears.’

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**Who acts:** Tegumai, picture, Head Chief · **What happens:** come, say, show, be · **To what, where:** you · **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 (Tegumai, picture, Head Chief), 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:pg2781:9:145
# text = ‘He came with a horrible picture,’ said the Head Chief,--‘a picture that showed you were full of spears.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
4	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	horrible	horrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	picture	picture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	Head	Head	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	Chief	Chief	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	picture	picture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	appos	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
20	showed	show	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	acl:relcl	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	iobj	_	_
22	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
23	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	ccomp	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	spears	spear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | Tegumai |  |  |  |  | with a horrible picture | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **show** | past | a picture |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 4 | **is** | past | the Head Chief |  |  |  |  | of spears; full *property* | tree rules |

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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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