---
title: ‘Then don’t bother me, said Tegumai, and he went on pulling and stra… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Then don’t bother me, said Tegumai, and he went on pulling and straining at the deer-sinews with his mouth full of loose ends. 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.
---

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# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 37

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‘Then don’t bother me, said Tegumai, and he went on pulling and straining at the deer-sinews with his mouth full of loose ends.

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**Who acts:** Tegumai · **What happens:** not bother, say, go, pull, strain · **To what, where:** me, deer sinews · **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 (Tegumai), 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:pg2781:9:37
# text = ‘Then don’t bother me, said Tegumai, and he went on pulling and straining at the deer-sinews with his mouth full of loose ends.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	bother	bother	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	Tegumai	Tegumai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
14	on	on	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	pulling	pull	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	straining	strain	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	conj	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
20	deer	deer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	sinews	sinew	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
23	with	with	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
26	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	loose	loose	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	ends	end	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **bother** | infinitive · do-support |  | me |  |  | then |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus i=Experiencer |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Tegumai |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **go** | past | Tegumai |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **pull** | gerund | Tegumai *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn slide-11.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **strain** | gerund | Tegumai *not said here* |  |  | the deer sinews with Tegumai's mouth |  |  | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent |

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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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