---
title: “Hum!” said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin of a… — The Jungle Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Hum!” said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin of a forepaw. Who acts: Mowgli. 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 88

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“Hum!” said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin of a forepaw.

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**Who acts:** Mowgli · **What happens:** say, rip back · **To what, where:** skin · **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 (Mowgli), 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:pg236:9:88
# text = “Hum!” said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin of a forepaw.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Hum	hum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	Mowgli	Mowgli	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	half	half	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	5	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	8	obl	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	ripped	rip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
14	back	back	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	forepaw	forepaw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Mowgli |  |  |  |  | half *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **rip back** | past | Mowgli | the skin of a forepaw |  |  |  |  | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent skin=Patient |

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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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