---
title: She waves her arms and she shouts at me, but I don’t understand a wo… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: She waves her arms and she shouts at me, but I don’t understand a word of what she says. Who acts: child, 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 45

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She waves her arms and she shouts at me, but I don’t understand a word of what she says.

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**Who acts:** child, I · **What happens:** wave, shout, not understand, say · **To what, where:** arms, word · **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 (child, 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:pg2781:9:45
# text = She waves her arms and she shouts at me, but I don’t understand a word of what she says.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	waves	wave	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	arms	arm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	shouts	shout	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	17	nmod	_	_
20	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wave** | present | child | child's arms |  |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent arm=Patient |
| 2 | **shout** *speech: express* | present | child |  |  |  |  | at me | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **understand** | present · do-support | I | a word |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer word=Stimulus |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | child |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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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