---
title: “We aren’t taught that way,” said Billy the mule stiffly. — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “We aren’t taught that way,” said Billy the mule stiffly. Who acts: Billy. 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 54

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“We aren’t taught that way,” said Billy the mule stiffly.

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**Who acts:** Billy · **What happens:** not teach, say · **To what, where:** We · **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 (Billy), 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:pg236:19:54
# text = “We aren’t taught that way,” said Billy the mule stiffly.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	taught	teach	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	ccomp	_	_
6	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
7	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	Billy	Billy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	mule	mule	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	stiffly	stiffly	ADV	RB	_	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **teach** *speech: other* *in a quote* | present · passive |  | We |  |  |  | that way *obl:unmarked* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Billy |  |  |  |  |  | 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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