---
title: “For a wolf, no,” said Tabaqui, “but for so mean a person as myself… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “For a wolf, no,” said Tabaqui, “but for so mean a person as myself a dry bone is a good feast. Who acts: Tabaqui, dry bone. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/1/22/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Jungle Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/) / [The Jungle Book, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/1/) / 22

# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 1, sentence 22

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“For a wolf, no,” said Tabaqui, “but for so mean a person as myself a dry bone is a good feast.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Tabaqui, dry bone · **What happens:** say, mean, be · **To what, where:** person, good feast · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Tabaqui, dry bone), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg236:1:22
# text = “For a wolf, no,” said Tabaqui, “but for so mean a person as myself a dry bone is a good feast.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	For	for	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	no	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	Tabaqui	Tabaqui	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	as	as	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	myself	myself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	16	obl	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	bone	bone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
24	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
26	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	feast	feast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Tabaqui |  |  |  |  | for a wolf | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **mean** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | a person |  |  |  | as Tabaqui | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Agent person=Topic as myself=Attribute |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | a dry bone | a good feast |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, Project Gutenberg book 236 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/1/21/)
- next →: [sentence 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/1/23/)
- ↑ back to [The Jungle Book, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/1/)