---
title: He did this, Best Beloved, to show that his heart was as white as th… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He did this, Best Beloved, to show that his heart was as white as the birch-bark and that he meant no harm; but Taffy didn’t quite understand. Who acts: man, heart, Taffy. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the First Letter Was Written, with its dependency tree and the pragmatic
---

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# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 48

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He did this, Best Beloved, to show that his heart was as white as the birch-bark and that he meant no harm; but Taffy didn’t quite understand.

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**Who acts:** man, heart, Taffy · **What happens:** do, show, be, mean, not understand · **To what, where:** this, harm · **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 (man, heart, Taffy), 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:pg2781:9:48
# text = He did this, Best Beloved, to show that his heart was as white as the birch-bark and that he meant no harm; but Taffy didn’t quite understand.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	Best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	6	amod	_	_
6	Beloved	Beloved	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	show	show	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	as	as	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	ccomp	_	_
16	as	as	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
18	birch	birch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	bark	bark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
22	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
23	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
24	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	conj	_	_
25	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	26	det	_	_
26	harm	harm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	33	punct	_	_
28	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
29	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	33	nsubj	_	_
30	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	33	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	33	advmod	_	_
32	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
33	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | man | this |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent this=Eventuality |
| 2 | **show** | to-infinitive | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | man's heart |  |  |  |  | as the birch bark; white *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **mean** | past | man | no harm |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent harm=Topic |
| 5 | **not** **understand** | past · do-support | Taffy |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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.

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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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