---
title: “My father was a Southern gentleman, and he could pull down and bite… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “My father was a Southern gentleman, and he could pull down and bite and kick into rags every horse he came across. Who acts: father, gentleman. 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 153

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“My father was a Southern gentleman, and he could pull down and bite and kick into rags every horse he came across.

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**Who acts:** father, gentleman · **What happens:** be, pull down, bite, kick, come · **To what, where:** Southern gentleman, horse, rags

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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 (father, gentleman), 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:pg236:19:153
# text = “My father was a Southern gentleman, and he could pull down and bite and kick into rags every horse he came across.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	Southern	southern	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	pull	pull	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	parataxis	_	_
13	down	down	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	bite	bite	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	kick	kick	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
18	into	into	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	rags	rag	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
20	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	21	det	_	_
21	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
22	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	acl:relcl	_	_
24	across	across	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | past | My father | a Southern gentleman |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **pull down** *in a quote* | could | gentleman |  |  |  |  |  | vn slide-11.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **bite** *in a quote* | present | gentleman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **kick** *in a quote* | present | gentleman *not said here* | every horse |  |  |  | into rags *result* | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Agent horse=Patient into rag=Result |
| 5 | **come** *in a quote* | past | gentleman | every horse *not said here* |  |  |  | across *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location horse=Theme |

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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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