---
title: ‘He is fond of things that are soft and tickle,’ said the Bat. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘He is fond of things that are soft and tickle,’ said the Bat. Who acts: Baby, things. 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 97

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‘He is fond of things that are soft and tickle,’ said the Bat.

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**Who acts:** Baby, things · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** Bat · **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 (Baby, things), 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:pg2781:12:97
# text = ‘He is fond of things that are soft and tickle,’ said the Bat.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	fond	fond	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	ccomp	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
8	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	acl:relcl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	tickle	tickle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Bat	bat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Baby |  |  |  |  | of things; fond *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | present | things |  |  |  |  | soft *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the Bat |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent bat=Topic |

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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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