---
title: “Would it were so in Afghanistan!” said the chief, “for there we obe… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Would it were so in Afghanistan!” said the chief, “for there we obey only our own wills.” Who acts: driver, Afghanistan, we, our. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/20/171/)

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 20, sentence 171

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“Would it were so in Afghanistan!” said the chief, “for there we obey only our own wills.”

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**Who acts:** driver, Afghanistan, we, our · **What happens:** be, say, obey, will · **To what, where:** Afghanistan, chief, own wills · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (driver, Afghanistan, we, our), 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:pg236:20:171
# text = “Would it were so in Afghanistan!” said the chief, “for there we obey only our own wills.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	Afghanistan	Afghanistan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	chief	chief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	18	obl	_	_
17	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	obey	obey	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
19	only	only	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
20	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
21	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	wills	will	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | would | driver |  |  | Afghanistan |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: express* | past | Afghanistan | the chief |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **obey** *in a quote* | present | we | our own wills |  |  |  |  | vn abide\_by-93.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent will=Theme |
| 4 | **will** *in a quote* |  | our |  |  |  |  |  | nom will «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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