---
title: ‘How can I,’ said the Camel, ‘with this humph on my back?’ — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘How can I,’ said the Camel, ‘with this humph on my back?’ Who acts: I. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Camel Got His Hump, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, How the Camel Got His Hump, sentence 39

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‘How can I,’ said the Camel, ‘with this humph on my back?’

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** say · **To what, where:** Camel · **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 (I), 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:pg2781:3:39
# text = ‘How can I,’ said the Camel, ‘with this humph on my back?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Camel	camel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	det	_	_
14	humph	humph	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	ccomp	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | can | I | the Camel |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent camel=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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