---
title: When a snake misses its stroke, it never says anything or gives any… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When a snake misses its stroke, it never says anything or gives any sign of what it means to do next. Who acts: snake, grass. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 13, 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/pg236/13/135/)

<!-- 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 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/13/) / 135

# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 13, sentence 135

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When a snake misses its stroke, it never says anything or gives any sign of what it means to do next.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** snake, grass · **What happens:** miss, not say, give, mean, do, stroke · **To what, where:** stroke, anything, sign · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (snake, grass), 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:pg236:13:135
# text = When a snake misses its stroke, it never says anything or gives any sign of what it means to do next.
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	4	mark	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	snake	snake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	misses	miss	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
5	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	stroke	stroke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	10	obj	_	_
12	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	gives	give	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
14	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	15	det	_	_
15	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nmod	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	next	next	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **miss** | present | a snake | grass's stroke |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer stroke=Stimulus |
| 2 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | present | grass | anything |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent anything=Topic |
| 3 | **give** | present | grass *not said here* | any sign |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sign=Theme |
| 4 | **mean** | present | grass |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | grass *not said here* |  |  |  |  | next *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **stroke** |  | grass |  |  |  |  |  | nom stroke «act transitive»: poss=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.

<!-- 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 134](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/13/134/)
- next →: [sentence 136](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/13/136/)
- ↑ back to [The Jungle Book, part 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/13/)