---
title: “What was the use of half slaying him with blows if thou didst not w… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “What was the use of half slaying him with blows if thou didst not warn him?” Who acts: use, thou. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 5, sentence 24

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“What was the use of half slaying him with blows if thou didst not warn him?”

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**Who acts:** use, thou · **What happens:** be, slay, not warn · **To what, where:** use, Bagheera

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (use, thou), 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:pg236:5:24
# text = “What was the use of half slaying him with blows if thou didst not warn him?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	5	nmod	_	_
8	slaying	slay	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	blows	blow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
13	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	16	nsubj	_	_
14	didst	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Style=Arch|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	warn	warn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	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** *in a quote* | past |  | the use |  |  |  | of half | tree rules |
| 2 | **slay** *in a quote* | gerund | the use *not said here* | Bagheera |  |  |  | with blows | vn murder-42.1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent he=Patient with blow=Instrument |
| 3 | **not** **warn** *speech: warn* *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past · do-support | thou |  | Bagheera |  |  |  | vn advise-37.9-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |

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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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