---
title: The young mule’s teeth snapped, and I heard him say something about… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The young mule’s teeth snapped, and I heard him say something about not being afraid of any beefy old bullock in the world. Who acts: teeth, I, mule. 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 36

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The young mule’s teeth snapped, and I heard him say something about not being afraid of any beefy old bullock in the world.

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**Who acts:** teeth, I, mule · **What happens:** snap, hear, say, not be · **To what, where:** mule, something · **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 (teeth, I, mule), 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:pg236:19:36
# text = The young mule’s teeth snapped, and I heard him say something about not being afraid of any beefy old bullock in the world.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	mule	mule	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	teeth	tooth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	snapped	snap	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	12	obj	_	_
14	about	about	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	cop	_	_
17	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	acl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
19	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	22	det	_	_
20	beefy	beefy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
21	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	bullock	bullock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **snap** | past | the young mule's teeth |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **hear** | past | I | mule |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | infinitive | mule *not said here* | something |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent something=Topic |
| 4 | **not** **is** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | of any beefy old bullock in the world; afraid *property* | tree rules |

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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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