---
title: “Do you think a snake-killer kills muskrats?” said Rikki-tikki scorn… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Do you think a snake-killer kills muskrats?” said Rikki-tikki scornfully. Who acts: you, snake killer, Rikki tikki. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/14/32/)

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 14, sentence 32

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“Do you think a snake-killer kills muskrats?” said Rikki-tikki scornfully.

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**Who acts:** you, snake killer, Rikki tikki · **What happens:** think, kill, say · **To what, where:** muskrats · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, snake killer, Rikki tikki), 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:pg236:14:32
# text = “Do you think a snake-killer kills muskrats?” said Rikki-tikki scornfully.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	snake	snake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	killer	killer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	kills	kill	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
10	muskrats	muskrat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	Rikki	Rikki	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	tikki	tikki	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
17	scornfully	scornfully	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **kill** *in a quote* | present | a snake killer | muskrats |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent muskrat=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Rikki tikki |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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