---
title: ‘I didn’t intend to; I only wanted Daddy’s black-handled spear,’ sai… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I didn’t intend to; I only wanted Daddy’s black-handled spear,’ 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.
---

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# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 167

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‘I didn’t intend to; I only wanted Daddy’s black-handled spear,’ said Taffy.

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**Who acts:** I, Taffy · **What happens:** not intend, want, handle, say · **To what, where:** handled spear · **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 (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:pg2781:9:167
# text = ‘I didn’t intend to; I only wanted Daddy’s black-handled spear,’ said Taffy.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	intend	intend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	ccomp	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	only	only	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
11	Daddy	Daddy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’s	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	handled	handle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	amod	_	_
16	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **intend** | past · do-support | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **want** | past | I | Daddy's handled spear |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot spear=Theme |
| 3 | **handle** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn hold-15.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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