---
title: Balkis bent her beautiful head down and whispered, ‘Little woman, do… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Balkis bent her beautiful head down and whispered, ‘Little woman, do you believe what your husband has just said?’ Who acts: Balkis, you. 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 74

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Balkis bent her beautiful head down and whispered, ‘Little woman, do you believe what your husband has just said?’

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**Who acts:** Balkis, you · **What happens:** bend, whisper, believe, say · **To what, where:** beautiful head, Little woman, husband · **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 (Balkis, you), 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:pg2781:13:74
# text = Balkis bent her beautiful head down and whispered, ‘Little woman, do you believe what your husband has just said?’
1	Balkis	Balkis	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	bent	bend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	down	down	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	whispered	whisper	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
17	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	22	obj	_	_
18	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj:pass	_	_
20	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	just	just	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bend** | past | Balkis | Balkis's beautiful head |  |  |  | down *property* | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: agent=Agent head=Material |
| 2 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | past | Balkis *not said here* | Little woman |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **believe** | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | present · perfect · passive |  | your husband |  |  |  |  | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP NP»: subject=Theme what=Manner |

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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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