---
title: ‘Silly!’ said Taffy, and she stamped her foot, because she saw a sho… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Silly!’ said Taffy, and she stamped her foot, because she saw a shoal of very big carp going up the river just when her Daddy couldn’t use his spear. Who acts: Taffy, big carp, Daddy. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the First Letter Was Written, with its dependency tree and 
---

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# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 33

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‘Silly!’ said Taffy, and she stamped her foot, because she saw a shoal of very big carp going up the river just when her Daddy couldn’t use his spear.

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**Who acts:** Taffy, big carp, Daddy · **What happens:** say, stamp, see, go up, not use · **To what, where:** foot, shoal, river, 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 (Taffy, big carp, Daddy), 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:pg2781:9:33
# text = ‘Silly!’ said Taffy, and she stamped her foot, because she saw a shoal of very big carp going up the river just when her Daddy couldn’t use his spear.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Silly	silly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	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	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	stamped	stamp	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	shoal	shoal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	very	very	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	carp	carp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
23	going	go	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	22	acl	_	_
24	up	up	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
27	just	just	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
28	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	33	mark	_	_
29	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
30	Daddy	daddy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	nsubj	_	_
31	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	33	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	33	advmod	_	_
33	use	use	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	xcomp	_	_
34	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	35	nmod:poss	_	_
35	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	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 |  |  |  |  | silly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **stamp** | past | Taffy | Taffy's foot |  |  |  |  | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent foot=Destination |
| 3 | **see** | past | Taffy | a shoal of big carp |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer shoal=Stimulus |
| 4 | **go up** | gerund | big carp *not said here* | the river |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **not** **use** | could | Taffy's Daddy | man's spear |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spear=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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