---
title: And almost stepping on the chain was another battery mule, calling w… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And almost stepping on the chain was another battery mule, calling wildly for “Billy.” A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 18, 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/pg236/18/147/)

<!-- 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 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/18/) / 147

# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 18, sentence 147

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And almost stepping on the chain was another battery mule, calling wildly for “Billy.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** step, be, call · **To what, where:** battery mule, chain · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg236:18:147
# text = And almost stepping on the chain was another battery mule, calling wildly for “Billy.”
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	stepping	step	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	chain	chain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
8	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	10	det	_	_
9	battery	battery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	mule	mule	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	calling	call	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
13	wildly	wildly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	Billy	Billy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **step** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | almost *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past |  | another battery mule |  | the chain |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **call** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | for Billy; wildly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient S\_INF»: agent=Agent for billy=Recipient |

<!-- .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 146](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/18/146/)
- next →: [The Jungle Book, part 19, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/19/1/)
- ↑ back to [The Jungle Book, part 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/18/)