---
title: ‘Don’t bother grown-ups,’ said Tegumai, so busy with his spear-mendi… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Don’t bother grown-ups,’ said Tegumai, so busy with his spear-mending that he did not turn round. Who acts: Tegumai. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/34/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Just so stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/) / [How the First Letter Was Written](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/) / 34

# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 34

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Don’t bother grown-ups,’ said Tegumai, so busy with his spear-mending that he did not turn round.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Tegumai · **What happens:** not bother, grow, say, mend, not turn round · **To what, where:** grown ups · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2781:9:34
# text = ‘Don’t bother grown-ups,’ said Tegumai, so busy with his spear-mending that he did not turn round.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	bother	bother	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
5	grown	grow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	ups	up	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	Tegumai	Tegumai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	so	so	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	ccomp	_	_
15	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Gender=Masc|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	mending	mend	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
20	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
22	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	24	advmod	_	_
24	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	advcl	_	_
25	round	round	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **bother** | infinitive · do-support |  | grown ups |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus up=Experiencer |
| 2 | **grow** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Tegumai |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **mend** | gerund | Tegumai |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **not** **turn round** | past · do-support | Tegumai |  |  |  |  | round *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 33](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/33/)
- next →: [sentence 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/35/)
- ↑ back to [How the First Letter Was Written](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/)