---
title: If he’s standing on his head the tail will come first. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: If he’s standing on his head the tail will come first. Who acts: feeler. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Alphabet Was Made, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, How the Alphabet Was Made, sentence 65

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If he’s standing on his head the tail will come first.

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**Who acts:** feeler · **What happens:** stand, come · **To what, where:** tail, head

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Alphabet Was Made. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (feeler), 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:pg2781:10:65
# text = If he’s standing on his head the tail will come first.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	standing	stand	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
10	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	come	come	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** *a condition, not said to happen* | present · progressive | feeler | the tail |  | feeler's head |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent tail=Theme on head=Destination |
| 2 | **come** | future |  |  |  |  |  | first *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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:** «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, Project Gutenberg book 2781 (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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