---
title: It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. Who acts: Englishman. 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/pg236/13/63/)

<!-- 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/) / 63

# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 13, sentence 63

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Englishman · **What happens:** be, frighten, eat up · **To what, where:** hardest thing, world, mongoose, Tikki, nose

<!-- .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 (Englishman), 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:pg236:13:63
# text = It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	hardest	hard	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	amod	_	_
5	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	frighten	frighten	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	mongoose	mongoose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	parataxis	_	_
18	up	up	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	_
19	from	from	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
23	with	with	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	curiosity	curiosity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | Englishman | the hardest thing |  | the world |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **frighten** | to-infinitive | Englishman *not said here* | a mongoose |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus mongoose=Experiencer |
| 3 | **eat up** | present · passive |  | Tikki |  | nose |  | to tail with curiosity | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

<!-- .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 62](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/13/62/)
- next →: [sentence 64](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/13/64/)
- ↑ back to [The Jungle Book, part 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/13/)