---
title: ‘They get angry,’ said the Butterfly’s Wife, fanning herself quickly… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘They get angry,’ said the Butterfly’s Wife, fanning herself quickly, ‘over nothing at all, but we must humour them, O Queen. Who acts: lips, we. 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 78

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‘They get angry,’ said the Butterfly’s Wife, fanning herself quickly, ‘over nothing at all, but we must humour them, O Queen.

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**Who acts:** lips, we · **What happens:** get, say, fan, humour · **To what, where:** Wife, Balkis, nothing, lips · **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 (lips, we), 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:pg2781:13:78
# text = ‘They get angry,’ said the Butterfly’s Wife, fanning herself quickly, ‘over nothing at all, but we must humour them, O Queen.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	get	get	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
4	angry	angry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Butterfly	Butterfly	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’s	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	Wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	fanning	fan	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
14	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	13	obj	_	_
15	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	over	over	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	13	obl	_	_
20	at	at	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
23	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	humour	humour	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	parataxis	_	_
27	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
29	O	O	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	30	compound	_	_
30	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | present | lips *= lip* |  |  |  |  | angry *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the Butterfly's Wife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **fan** | gerund |  | Balkis |  | nothing |  | quickly *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **humour** | must | we | lips *= lip* |  |  |  | O Queen *obl* | tree rules |

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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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