---
title: He held on savagely, and stuck out his feet to act as brakes on the… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He held on savagely, and stuck out his feet to act as brakes on the dark slope of the hot, moist earth. Who acts: tikki. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 15, sentence 72

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He held on savagely, and stuck out his feet to act as brakes on the dark slope of the hot, moist earth.

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**Who acts:** tikki · **What happens:** hold on, stick out, act · **To what, where:** feet

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg236:15:72
# text = He held on savagely, and stuck out his feet to act as brakes on the dark slope of the hot, moist earth.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	savagely	savagely	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	stuck	stick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
8	out	out	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	act	act	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
13	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	brakes	brake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	slope	slope	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
21	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
23	moist	moist	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold on** | past | tikki |  |  |  |  | savagely *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **stick out** | past |  | tikki's feet |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent foot=Theme |
| 3 | **act** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | as brakes on the dark slope of the hot moist earth | vn masquerade-29.6-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Agent as brake=Attribute |

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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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