---
title: How, then, shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: How, then, shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins which he says he has seen?” Who acts: I, Mowgli, ghosts. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 8, 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/pg236/8/59/)

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 8, sentence 59

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How, then, shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins which he says he has seen?”

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**Who acts:** I, Mowgli, ghosts · **What happens:** believe, say, see, tell · **To what, where:** tales · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, Mowgli, ghosts), 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:pg236:8:59
# text = How, then, shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins which he says he has seen?”
1	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	tales	tale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	ghosts	ghost	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	gods	god	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	goblins	goblin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	_
16	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	obj	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **believe** | shall | I | the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins |  |  | then |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer tale=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Mowgli |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **see** | present · perfect | Mowgli |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **tell** |  | ghosts |  |  |  |  |  | nom tale «communication intransitive»: of=agent |

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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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