---
title: He stood on the bank and smiled at Taffy, because he had a little gi… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He stood on the bank and smiled at Taffy, because he had a little girl-daughter Of his own at home. Who acts: man. 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 28

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He stood on the bank and smiled at Taffy, because he had a little girl-daughter Of his own at home.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** stand, smile, have · **To what, where:** bank, Taffy, little girl daughter, home

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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 (man), 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:pg2781:9:28
# text = He stood on the bank and smiled at Taffy, because he had a little girl-daughter Of his own at home.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	bank	bank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	smiled	smile	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
16	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
19	Of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	nmod	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | man |  |  | the bank |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on bank=Location |
| 2 | **smile** | past | man *not said here* |  |  | Taffy |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **have** | past | man | a little girl daughter of man's own |  | home |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=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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