---
title: “They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen’s ear,” said Bi… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen’s ear,” said Billy. Who acts: shells, mule, you, 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 77

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“They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen’s ear,” said Billy.

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**Who acts:** shells, mule, you, Billy · **What happens:** say, trip, split · **To what, where:** ear · **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 (shells, mule, you, 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:pg236:19:77
# text = “They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen’s ear,” said Billy.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	ccomp	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
5	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	8	mark	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	mule	mule	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	trips	trip	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	split	split	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	hen	hen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’s	's	PART	POS	_	13	case	_	_
15	ear	ear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
18	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	Billy	Billy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | shells *= shell* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **trip** *in a quote* | present | a mule |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **split** *in a quote* | can | you | a hen's ear |  |  |  |  | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ear=Patient |
| 4 | **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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