---
title: Why, it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at. — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Why, it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at. Who acts: it, men. 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 81

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Why, it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at.

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**Who acts:** it, men · **What happens:** take, find out, drive · **To what, where:** me

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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 (it, men), 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:pg236:19:81
# text = Why, it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at.
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
7	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
10	out	out	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	obj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	driving	drive	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	xcomp	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | it |  | me |  | year |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument i=Destination |
| 2 | **find out** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V what S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **drive** | past · progressive | the men |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent what=Location |

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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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