---
title: Little seals can no more swim than little children, but they are unh… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Little seals can no more swim than little children, but they are unhappy till they learn. Who acts: seas. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 10, sentence 166

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Little seals can no more swim than little children, but they are unhappy till they learn.

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**Who acts:** seas · **What happens:** be, learn

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (seas), 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:pg236:10:166
# text = Little seals can no more swim than little children, but they are unhappy till they learn.
1	Little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	seals	seal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	no	no	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	6	amod	_	_
6	swim	swim	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	than	than	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	unhappy	unhappy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	parataxis	_	_
15	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	learn	learn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | seas *= sea* |  |  |  |  | unhappy *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **learn** | present | seas *= sea* |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-1 «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:** «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.

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