---
title: You know I can’t do it, and now she’ll never believe a word I say. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: You know I can’t do it, and now she’ll never believe a word I say. Who acts: You, I, Balkis. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Butterfly That Stamped, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, The Butterfly That Stamped, sentence 104

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You know I can’t do it, and now she’ll never believe a word I say.

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**Who acts:** You, I, Balkis · **What happens:** know, not do, not believe, say · **To what, where:** word · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Butterfly That Stamped. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, I, Balkis), 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:pg2781:13:104
# text = You know I can’t do it, and now she’ll never believe a word I say.
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
10	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advmod	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’ll	'll	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | present | You |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **not** **do** | can | I | word |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |
| 3 | **not** **believe** | infinitive | Balkis | a word |  |  | now | 'll *property* | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer word=Stimulus |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | I | a word *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=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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