---
title: ‘Er-um-Pr’aps I’d better ‘splain that I gave him that picture,’ said… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Er-um-Pr’aps I’d better ‘splain that I gave him that picture,’ said Taffy, but she did not feel quite comfy. Who acts: um Pr’aps, 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 146

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‘Er-um-Pr’aps I’d better ‘splain that I gave him that picture,’ said Taffy, but she did not feel quite comfy.

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**Who acts:** um Pr’aps, I, Taffy · **What happens:** have, give, say, not feel · **To what, where:** splain, Tegumai · **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 (um Pr’aps, 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:pg2781:9:146
# text = ‘Er-um-Pr’aps I’d better ‘splain that I gave him that picture,’ said Taffy, but she did not feel quite comfy.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Er	er	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	um	um	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	Pr’aps	pr'ap	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’d	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	parataxis	_	_
9	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	xcomp	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	splain	splain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	obj	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	iobj	_	_
16	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	det	_	_
17	picture	picture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	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	,	_	27	punct	_	_
23	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
24	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
25	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
26	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	27	advmod	_	_
27	feel	feel	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	parataxis	_	_
28	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
29	comfy	comfy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | um Pr’aps | splain |  |  |  | good *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **give** | past | I | splain | Tegumai |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **feel** | past · do-support | Taffy |  |  |  |  | comfy *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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