--- title: The old saying "a leopard cannot change its spots" means that people… — Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 4: How the Le… · tree and pragmatics description: The old saying "a leopard cannot change its spots" means that people do not change what they are really like; Kipling jokes that it only exists because the Leopard did it once. Who acts: leopard, old saying, people, Kipling. A sentence of the lesson «Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 4: How the Leo --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/78-justso-leopard-spots-2/20/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/) / [Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 4:…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/78-justso-leopard-spots-2/) / 20 # Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 4: How the Leopard got his Spots, part 2 (One, two, three, and where's your breakfast?), sentence 20 The old saying "a leopard cannot change its spots" means that people do not change what they are really like; Kipling jokes that it only exists because the Leopard did it once. **Who acts:** leopard, old saying, people, Kipling, saying · **What happens:** not change, mean, joke, exist, do · **To what, where:** spots, saying · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 4: How the Leopard got his Spots, part 2 (One, two, three, and where's your breakfast?)» of the books course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (leopard, old saying, people, Kipling), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:books:078-justso-leopard-spots-2.lesson:20 # text = The old saying "a leopard cannot change its spots" means that people do not change what they are really like; Kipling jokes that it only exists because the Leopard did it once. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = books # lesson = 078-justso-leopard-spots-2.lesson # annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R6-punct-agree ×3, R7-rel-agree ×3, R8-pos-agree ×2 1 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 3 det _ _ 2 old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 amod _ _ 3 saying saying NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 nsubj _ _ 4 " " PUNCT `` _ 9 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=3:punct 5 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 6 leopard leopard NOUN NN Number=Sing 9 nsubj _ _ 7 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 9 aux _ _ 8 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 9 advmod _ _ 9 change change VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 3 ccomp _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:acl 10 its its PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 11 nmod:poss _ _ 11 spots spot NOUN NNS Number=Plur 9 obj _ _ 12 " " PUNCT '' _ 9 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=13:punct 13 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 14 that that SCONJ IN _ 18 mark _ _ 15 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 18 nsubj _ _ 16 do do AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 18 aux _ _ 17 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 18 advmod _ _ 18 change change VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 13 ccomp _ _ 19 what what PRON WP PronType=Int 18 obj _ _ 20 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 23 nsubj _ _ 21 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 23 cop _ _ 22 really really ADV RB _ 23 advmod _ _ 23 like like ADP IN _ 19 acl:relcl _ _ 24 ; ; PUNCT : _ 26 punct _ _ 25 Kipling Kipling PROPN NNP Number=Sing 26 nsubj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=26:compound|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing 26 jokes joke VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 13 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=13:conj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NNS:Number=Plur 27 that that SCONJ IN _ 30 mark _ _ 28 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 30 nsubj _ _ 29 only only ADV RB _ 30 advmod _ _ 30 exists exist VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 26 ccomp _ _ 31 because because SCONJ IN _ 34 mark _ _ 32 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 33 det _ _ 33 Leopard leopard PROPN NNP Number=Sing 34 nsubj _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=34:nsubj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing 34 did do VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 30 advcl _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=30:advcl|HaikuPos=AUX:VBD:Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 35 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 34 obj _ _ 36 once once ADV RB NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult 34 advmod _ _ 37 . . PUNCT . _ 13 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=9:punct ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed voice=narrator | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **not** **change** *in a quote* | can | a leopard | saying's spots | | | | | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spot=Patient | | 2 | **mean** | present | the old saying | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 3 | **not** **change** | present · do-support | people | | | | | | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Patient | | 4 | **joke** *speech: other* | present | Kipling | | | | | | tree rules | | 5 | **exist** | present | saying | | | | | | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 6 | **do** | past | the Leopard | saying | | | | once *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality | 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. **Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:books:078-justso-leopard-spots-2.lesson:20`. **The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R6-punct-agree ×3, R7-rel-agree ×3, R8-pos-agree ×2. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence. See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/). - ← previous: [Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 4:…, 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/78-justso-leopard-spots-2/19/) - next →: [Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 4:…, 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/78-justso-leopard-spots-2/21/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/78-justso-leopard-spots-2/)