---
title: Men can’t come down the cliffs, even if there were any men; and the… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Men can’t come down the cliffs, even if there were any men; and the shoals to seaward would knock a ship to splinters. Who acts: Men, shoals. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 12, sentence 77

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Men can’t come down the cliffs, even if there were any men; and the shoals to seaward would knock a ship to splinters.

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**Who acts:** Men, shoals · **What happens:** not come down, be, knock · **To what, where:** cliffs, men, ship, splinters

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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 (Men, shoals), 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:pg236:12:77
# text = Men can’t come down the cliffs, even if there were any men; and the shoals to seaward would knock a ship to splinters.
1	Men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
2	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	down	down	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	cliffs	cliff	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	even	even	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
10	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	12	expl	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	14	det	_	_
14	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	shoals	shoal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	seaward	seaward	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
21	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	knock	knock	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	to	to	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	splinters	splinter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **come down** | can | Men | the cliffs |  |  |  | down *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past |  | any men |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **knock** | would | the shoals to seaward | a ship |  | splinters |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent ship=Theme to splinter=Destination |

<!-- .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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