---
title: He is no tree trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon. — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He is no tree trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon. Who acts: face. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 4, sentence 32

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He is no tree trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon.

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**Who acts:** face · **What happens:** be, sharpen · **To what, where:** tree trunk, blunt claws

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (face), 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:pg236:4:32
# text = He is no tree trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	5	det	_	_
4	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	trunk	trunk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	sharpen	sharpen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl	_	_
8	thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	blunt	blunt	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	claws	claw	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
11	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | face | no tree trunk |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sharpen** | to-infinitive |  | thy blunt claws |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent claw=Patient |

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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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