---
title: ‘I wanted the Stranger-man to fetch Daddy’s spear, so I drawded it,’… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I wanted the Stranger-man to fetch Daddy’s spear, so I drawded it,’ 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/154/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Just so stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/) / [How the First Letter Was Written](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/) / 154

# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 154

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I wanted the Stranger-man to fetch Daddy’s spear, so I drawded it,’ said Taffy.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, Taffy · **What happens:** want, fetch, drawd, say · **To what, where:** Stranger man, spear, foot · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2781:9:154
# text = ‘I wanted the Stranger-man to fetch Daddy’s spear, so I drawded it,’ said Taffy.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	ccomp	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	Stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	fetch	fetch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	acl	_	_
10	Daddy	Daddy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’s	's	PART	POS	_	10	case	_	_
12	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	drawded	drawd	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	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}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **want** | past | I | the Stranger man |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot man=Theme |
| 2 | **fetch** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | Daddy's spear |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spear=Theme |
| 3 | **drawd** | past | I | foot |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 153](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/153/)
- next →: [sentence 155](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/155/)
- ↑ back to [How the First Letter Was Written](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/)