---
title: “Seems to me,” said Billy to the troop horse, “that our friend Two T… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Seems to me,” said Billy to the troop horse, “that our friend Two Tails is afraid of most things. Who acts: Billy, friend. 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/pg236/20/58/)

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 20, sentence 58

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“Seems to me,” said Billy to the troop horse, “that our friend Two Tails is afraid of most things.

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**Who acts:** Billy, friend · **What happens:** seem, say, be · **To what, where:** Billy, troop horse · **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 (Billy, friend), 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:pg236:20:58
# text = “Seems to me,” said Billy to the troop horse, “that our friend Two Tails is afraid of most things.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Seems	seem	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	Billy	Billy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	troop	troop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
14	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
16	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
18	Two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	flat	_	_
19	Tails	tail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	conj	_	_
20	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
21	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	parataxis	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	most	most	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	24	amod	_	_
24	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** *in a quote* | present |  |  | Billy |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Billy |  | the troop horse |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to horse=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | our friend and Tails |  |  |  |  | of most things; 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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