---
title: He got up and twisted a big flat piece of bark off a birch-tree and… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He got up and twisted a big flat piece of bark off a birch-tree and gave it to Taffy. 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 47

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He got up and twisted a big flat piece of bark off a birch-tree and gave it to Taffy.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** get up, twist, give · **To what, where:** big flat piece, birch tree, piece, Taffy

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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:pg2781:9:47
# text = He got up and twisted a big flat piece of bark off a birch-tree and gave it to Taffy.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	up	up	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	twisted	twist	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
8	flat	flat	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	bark	bark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
12	off	off	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
14	birch	birch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	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 | **get up** | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **twist** | past | man *not said here* | a big flat piece of bark |  | a birch tree |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent piece=Theme off tree=Trajectory |
| 3 | **give** | past | man *not said here* | piece | Taffy |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Theme to taffy=Recipient |

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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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