---
title: “What is the good of a man,” he said to himself at last, “if he does… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “What is the good of a man,” he said to himself at last, “if he does not understand man’s talk? Who acts: Mowgli, man. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/7/184/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Jungle Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/) / [The Jungle Book, part 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/7/) / 184

# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 7, sentence 184

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“What is the good of a man,” he said to himself at last, “if he does not understand man’s talk?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Mowgli, man · **What happens:** be, say, not understand, talk · **To what, where:** Mowgli, last, talk · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Mowgli, man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg236:7:184
# text = “What is the good of a man,” he said to himself at last, “if he does not understand man’s talk?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	obl	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	ccomp	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	12	obl	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	parataxis	_	_
24	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’s	's	PART	POS	_	24	case	_	_
26	talk	talk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  | of a man; good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Mowgli |  | Mowgli | last |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to himself=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **understand** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present · do-support | Mowgli | man's talk |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer talk=Stimulus |
| 4 | **talk** *in a quote* |  | man |  |  |  |  |  | nom talk «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 183](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/7/183/)
- next →: [sentence 185](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/7/185/)
- ↑ back to [The Jungle Book, part 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/7/)