---
title: “What does it matter who fires across you?” said the camel. — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “What does it matter who fires across you?” said the camel. Who acts: camel. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 19, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 19, sentence 107

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“What does it matter who fires across you?” said the camel.

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**Who acts:** camel · **What happens:** matter, fire, say · **To what, where:** trust · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 19. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (camel), 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:pg236:19:107
# text = “What does it matter who fires across you?” said the camel.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
3	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	expl	_	_
5	matter	matter	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	fires	fire	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
8	across	across	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	camel	camel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **matter** *in a quote* | present · do-support |  | trust |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **fire** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  | across you | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the camel |  |  |  |  |  | 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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