---
title: And here, or hereabouts, they met To hold their racial talks and suc… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: And here, or hereabouts, they met To hold their racial talks and such-- To barter beads for Whitby jet, And tin for gay shell torques and such. Who acts: Phoenicians. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the First Letter Was Written, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

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# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 181

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And here, or hereabouts, they met To hold their racial talks and such-- To barter beads for Whitby jet, And tin for gay shell torques and such.

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**Who acts:** Phoenicians · **What happens:** meet, hold, barter, talk · **To what, where:** tin, racial talks, beads

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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 (Phoenicians), 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:pg2781:9:181
# text = And here, or hereabouts, they met To hold their racial talks and such-- To barter beads for Whitby jet, And tin for gay shell torques and such.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	2	cc	_	_
2	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	hereabouts	hereabout	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	To	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
12	racial	racial	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	talks	talk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	To	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	barter	barter	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
19	beads	bead	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	_
20	for	for	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	Whitby	whitby	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	jet	jet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	tin	tin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
26	for	for	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	gay	gay	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
28	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	_
29	torques	torque	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meet** | past | Phoenicians *= phoenician* | tin for gay shell torques |  | here |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **hold** | to-infinitive | Phoenicians *= phoenician* *not said here* | Phoenicians's racial talks |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent talk=Theme |
| 3 | **barter** | to-infinitive | Phoenicians *= phoenician* *not said here* | beads |  |  |  | for Whitby jet | vn exchange-13.6.1 «NP V NP PP.co-theme»: agent=Agent bead=Theme for jet=Co-Theme |
| 4 | **talk** |  | Phoenicians *= phoenician* |  |  |  |  |  | nom talk «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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