---
title: If the beach was good and hard, with a slope behind it for seals to… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If the beach was good and hard, with a slope behind it for seals to play on, there was always the smoke of a whaler on the horizon, boiling down blubber, and Kotick knew what that meant. Who acts: beach, smoke, Kotick, that. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 1
---

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 12, sentence 10

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If the beach was good and hard, with a slope behind it for seals to play on, there was always the smoke of a whaler on the horizon, boiling down blubber, and Kotick knew what that meant.

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**Who acts:** beach, smoke, Kotick, that, whaler · **What happens:** be, play on, boil down, know, mean, smoke · **To what, where:** blubber · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (beach, smoke, Kotick, that), 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:pg236:12:10
# text = If the beach was good and hard, with a slope behind it for seals to play on, there was always the smoke of a whaler on the horizon, boiling down blubber, and Kotick knew what that meant.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	beach	beach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	slope	slope	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	parataxis	_	_
12	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nmod	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	seals	seal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	21	expl	_	_
21	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	parataxis	_	_
22	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	24	advmod	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	smoke	smoke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	whaler	whaler	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
28	on	on	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	horizon	horizon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
32	boiling	boil	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	24	conj	_	_
33	down	down	ADP	RP	_	32	compound:prt	_	_
34	blubber	blubber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	38	punct	_	_
36	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	38	cc	_	_
37	Kotick	Kotick	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	38	nsubj	_	_
38	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
39	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	41	obj	_	_
40	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	41	nsubj	_	_
41	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	38	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the beach |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | the beach *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **play on** | to-infinitive | the beach *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **be** | past | the smoke of a whaler on the horizon |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **boil down** | gerund | the smoke of a whaler on the horizon *not said here* | blubber |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent blubber=Topic |
| 6 | **know** | past | Kotick |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 7 | **mean** | past | that |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 8 | **smoke** |  | a whaler on the horizon |  |  |  |  |  | nom smoke «phenomenon intransitive»: of=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:** «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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