---
title: He sat down and took out a little leather mendy-bag, full of reindee… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He sat down and took out a little leather mendy-bag, full of reindeer-sinews and strips of leather, and lumps of bee’s-wax and resin, and began to mend the spear. Who acts: Tegumai, lumps. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the First Letter Was Written, with its dependency tree 
---

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# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 21

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He sat down and took out a little leather mendy-bag, full of reindeer-sinews and strips of leather, and lumps of bee’s-wax and resin, and began to mend the spear.

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**Who acts:** Tegumai, lumps · **What happens:** sit down, take out, begin, mend · **To what, where:** little leather mendy bag, spear

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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, lumps), 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:pg2781:9:21
# text = He sat down and took out a little leather mendy-bag, full of reindeer-sinews and strips of leather, and lumps of bee’s-wax and resin, and began to mend the spear.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	down	down	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
6	out	out	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
9	leather	leather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
10	mendy	mendy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	bag	bag	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	sinews	sinew	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	strips	strip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	conj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	leather	leather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
25	lumps	lump	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	34	nsubj	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	bee’s	bee'	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	29	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	wax	wax	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	conj	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	resin	resin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
33	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
34	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
35	to	to	PART	TO	_	36	mark	_	_
36	mend	mend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	34	xcomp	_	_
37	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	38	det	_	_
38	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit down** | past | Tegumai |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **take out** | past | Tegumai *not said here* | a little leather mendy bag |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bag=Theme |
| 3 | **begin** | past | lumps of bee’s and wax and resin |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **mend** | to-infinitive | lumps of bee’s and wax and resin *not said here* | the spear |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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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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