---
title: Of course I can’t write, but I can draw pictures if I’ve anything sh… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Of course I can’t write, but I can draw pictures if I’ve anything sharp to scratch with. Who acts: 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 52

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Of course I can’t write, but I can draw pictures if I’ve anything sharp to scratch with.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** not write, draw, have, scratch · **To what, where:** pictures, anything

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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 (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:pg2781:9:52
# text = Of course I can’t write, but I can draw pictures if I’ve anything sharp to scratch with.
1	Of	of	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	write	write	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	draw	draw	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
12	pictures	picture	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
13	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’ve	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
16	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	15	obj	_	_
17	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	scratch	scratch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	advcl	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **write** | can | I |  |  |  |  | of course | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **draw** | can | I | pictures |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent picture=Theme |
| 3 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | I | anything |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Patient |
| 4 | **scratch** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: 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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