---
title: The old Bear had done his best, but he could not come before. — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old Bear had done his best, but he could not come before. Who acts: old Bear, Bear. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 6, 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/pg236/6/77/)

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 6, sentence 77

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The old Bear had done his best, but he could not come before.

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**Who acts:** old Bear, Bear · **What happens:** do, not come · **To what, where:** best

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old Bear, Bear), 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:pg236:6:77
# text = The old Bear had done his best, but he could not come before.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Bear	Bear	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
14	before	before	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past · perfect | the old Bear | Bear's best |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent good=Eventuality |
| 2 | **not** **come** | could | Bear |  |  |  |  | before *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «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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