---
title: He did not even ask Taffy the road, but raced off into the bushes li… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He did not even ask Taffy the road, but raced off into the bushes like the wind, with the birch-bark in his hand, and Taffy sat down most pleased. Who acts: Chief, Taffy. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the First Letter Was Written, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics
---

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# Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 94

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He did not even ask Taffy the road, but raced off into the bushes like the wind, with the birch-bark in his hand, and Taffy sat down most pleased.

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**Who acts:** Chief, Taffy · **What happens:** not ask, race off, sit down · **To what, where:** road, Taffy, bushes

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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 (Chief, 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:pg2781:9:94
# text = He did not even ask Taffy the road, but raced off into the bushes like the wind, with the birch-bark in his hand, and Taffy sat down most pleased.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	even	even	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	raced	race	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
12	off	off	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	into	into	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	bushes	bush	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
16	like	like	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
22	birch	birch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	bark	bark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
25	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
30	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	31	nsubj	_	_
31	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
32	down	down	ADP	RP	_	31	compound:prt	_	_
33	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	34	advmod	_	_
34	pleased	pleased	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **ask** *speech: ask* | past · do-support | Chief | the road | Taffy |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **race off** | past |  |  |  | the bushes like the wind |  | with the birch bark in Chief's hand | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into bush=Destination |
| 3 | **sit down** | past | Taffy |  |  |  |  | pleased *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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