---
title: ‘And if you say two words in my praise?’ said the Cat. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘And if you say two words in my praise?’ said the Cat. Who acts: you, my. 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 85

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‘And if you say two words in my praise?’ said the Cat.

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**Who acts:** you, my · **What happens:** say, praise · **To what, where:** two words, praise, Cat · **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 (you, my), 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:pg2781:12:85
# text = ‘And if you say two words in my praise?’ said the Cat.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
6	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
7	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	praise	praise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you | two words |  | my praise |  |  | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent word=Theme in praise=Manner |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the Cat |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **praise** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom praise «communication transitive»: poss=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:** «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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