---
title: “Because we’re told to,” said the troop-horse, with a snort of conte… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Because we’re told to,” said the troop-horse, with a snort of contempt. Who acts: troop horse, contempt. 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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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 20, sentence 75

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“Because we’re told to,” said the troop-horse, with a snort of contempt.

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**Who acts:** troop horse, contempt · **What happens:** tell, say, snort · **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 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (troop horse, contempt), 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:pg236:20:75
# text = “Because we’re told to,” said the troop-horse, with a snort of contempt.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’re	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	advcl	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	troop	troop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	snort	snort	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	contempt	contempt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present · passive |  | we |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the troop horse |  |  |  |  | with a snort of contempt | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent with snort=Manner |
| 3 | **snort** |  | contempt |  |  |  |  |  | nom snort «communication intransitive»: of=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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