---
title: The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the richest villager in the place. Who acts: priest. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 7, 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/pg236/7/170/)

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 7, sentence 170

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The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the richest villager in the place.

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**Who acts:** priest · **What happens:** be, know · **To what, where:** clever man, place, Messua wife · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (priest), 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:pg236:7:170
# text = The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the richest villager in the place.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	priest	priest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	Messua	Messua	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	richest	rich	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	18	amod	_	_
18	villager	villager	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | the priest | a clever man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **know** | past | priest | a clever man *not said here* |  | the place |  | to the richest villager | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer man=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is a** | past |  | Messua wife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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