---
title: “I can’t always obey, because I’m betwixt and between. — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I can’t always obey, because I’m betwixt and between. Who acts: Two Tails. 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 85

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“I can’t always obey, because I’m betwixt and between.

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**Who acts:** Two Tails · **What happens:** obey, be

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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 (Two Tails), 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:pg236:20:85
# text = “I can’t always obey, because I’m betwixt and between.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
5	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	6	advmod	_	_
6	obey	obey	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’m	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
11	betwixt	betwixt	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	between	between	ADP	IN	_	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **obey** *in a quote* | can |  |  |  |  |  | always *property* | vn abide\_by-93.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **be** *in a quote* | present | Two Tails *= tail* |  |  |  |  | betwixt *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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