---
title: The Stranger-man (and he was a Tewara) looked at the picture and nod… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: The Stranger-man (and he was a Tewara) looked at the picture and nodded very hard. Who acts: man, Stranger 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 88

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The Stranger-man (and he was a Tewara) looked at the picture and nodded very hard.

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**Who acts:** man, Stranger man · **What happens:** be, look, nod · **To what, where:** Tewara

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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, Stranger 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:pg2781:9:88
# text = The Stranger-man (and he was a Tewara) looked at the picture and nodded very hard.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	Stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
5	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Tewara	Tewara	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	10	punct	_	_
12	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	picture	picture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	nodded	nod	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
18	very	very	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | man | a Tewara |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **look** | past | the Stranger man |  |  |  |  | at the picture | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at picture=Theme |
| 3 | **nod** | past | the Stranger man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | vn wink-40.3.1 «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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