---
title: Back flew the Butterfly to his wife, who was all of a twitter behind… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Back flew the Butterfly to his wife, who was all of a twitter behind a leaf, and she said, ‘He heard you! Who acts: Head, Butterfly. 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 62

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Back flew the Butterfly to his wife, who was all of a twitter behind a leaf, and she said, ‘He heard you!

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**Who acts:** Head, Butterfly · **What happens:** fly, say, hear · **To what, where:** Butterfly, wife, you · **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 (Head, Butterfly), 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:pg2781:13:62
# text = Back flew the Butterfly to his wife, who was all of a twitter behind a leaf, and she said, ‘He heard you!
1	Back	back	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	Butterfly	butterfly	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	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	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
11	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	7	conj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	twitter	twitter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
15	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	leaf	leaf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
23	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	conj	_	_
26	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | past |  | the Butterfly | Butterfly's wife |  |  |  | vn drive-11.5-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent butterfly=Theme to wife=Destination |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Head |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hear** | past | Butterfly | you |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer you=Stimulus |

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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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