---
title: ‘Now,’ said the Cat, ‘I will sing the Baby a song that shall keep hi… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Now,’ said the Cat, ‘I will sing the Baby a song that shall keep him asleep for an hour. Who acts: I, song. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Cat That Walked By Himself, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, The Cat That Walked By Himself, sentence 118

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‘Now,’ said the Cat, ‘I will sing the Baby a song that shall keep him asleep for an hour.

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**Who acts:** I, song · **What happens:** say, sing, keep · **To what, where:** Cat, song, Baby · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Cat That Walked By Himself. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, song), 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:pg2781:12:118
# text = ‘Now,’ said the Cat, ‘I will sing the Baby a song that shall keep him asleep for an hour.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	Cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Baby	Baby	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
18	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	acl:relcl	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	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 |  | the Cat |  |  | now |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent cat=Topic |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | future | I | a song | the Baby |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: agent=Agent baby=Beneficiary song=Theme |
| 3 | **keep** | shall | a song | Cat |  |  | hour | asleep *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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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