---
title: ‘Well,’ said the Horse, ‘there’s a thing in the middle of your Howli… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Well,’ said the Horse, ‘there’s a thing in the middle of your Howling Desert (and he’s a Howler himself) with a long neck and long legs, and he hasn’t done a stroke of work since Monday morning. Who acts: Horse. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Camel Got His Hump, with it
---

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# Just so stories, How the Camel Got His Hump, sentence 17

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‘Well,’ said the Horse, ‘there’s a thing in the middle of your Howling Desert (and he’s a Howler himself) with a long neck and long legs, and he hasn’t done a stroke of work since Monday morning.

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**Who acts:** Horse · **What happens:** say, be, not do, stroke · **To what, where:** Horse, Howler, stroke, work · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Camel Got His Hump. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Horse), 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:pg2781:3:17
# text = ‘Well,’ said the Horse, ‘there’s a thing in the middle of your Howling Desert (and he’s a Howler himself) with a long neck and long legs, and he hasn’t done a stroke of work since Monday morning.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	Horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	11	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
19	Howling	Howling	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	Desert	Desert	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
21	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
23	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	Howler	howler	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	appos	_	_
27	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Emp|Reflex=Yes	26	nmod:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	26	punct	_	_
29	with	with	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
30	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
31	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
33	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
34	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	35	amod	_	_
35	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	41	punct	_	_
37	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	41	cc	_	_
38	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	41	nsubj	_	_
39	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	41	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	41	advmod	_	_
41	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
42	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	43	det	_	_
43	stroke	stroke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	41	obj	_	_
44	of	of	ADP	IN	_	45	case	_	_
45	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	43	nmod	_	_
46	since	since	ADP	IN	_	48	case	_	_
47	Monday	Monday	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	48	compound	_	_
48	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	41	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
49	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the Horse |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent horse=Topic |
| 2 | **is a** | present | Horse | a Howler |  |  |  | Horse *nmod:unmarked* | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **do** | present · perfect | Horse | a stroke of work |  |  | morning |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stroke=Eventuality |
| 4 | **stroke** |  |  | work |  |  |  |  | nom stroke «act transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .note -->
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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