---
title: ‘Taffy,’ said Tegumai, ‘how often have I told you not to use slang? — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Taffy,’ said Tegumai, ‘how often have I told you not to use slang? Who acts: Taffy, I. 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 25

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‘Taffy,’ said Tegumai, ‘how often have I told you not to use slang?

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**Who acts:** Taffy, I · **What happens:** say, have, tell, not use · **To what, where:** you, slang · **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 (Taffy, I), 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:pg2781:9:25
# text = ‘Taffy,’ said Tegumai, ‘how often have I told you not to use slang?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	Tegumai	Tegumai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
10	often	often	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	iobj	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	use	use	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
18	slang	slang	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **have** | present |  |  |  |  |  | often *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent you=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **not** **use** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | slang |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent slang=Patient |

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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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