---
title: Oh, if I could only tell him what I need of him to-day.” — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Oh, if I could only tell him what I need of him to-day.” Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jungle Book, The Jungle Book, part 9, sentence 29

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Oh, if I could only tell him what I need of him to-day.”

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** tell, need · **To what, where:** Rama · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jungle Book» by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg236:9:29
# text = Oh, if I could only tell him what I need of him to-day.”
1	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	iobj	_	_
9	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	obj	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	need	need	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | could | I |  | Rama |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **need** | present | I |  |  |  | day | of Rama | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot what=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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