---
title: Then he danced three times round the skin and rubbed his hands. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Then he danced three times round the skin and rubbed his hands. Who acts: Parsee. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, sentence 21

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Then he danced three times round the skin and rubbed his hands.

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**Who acts:** Parsee · **What happens:** dance, rub · **To what, where:** skin, hands

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Parsee), 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:pg2781:4:21
# text = Then he danced three times round the skin and rubbed his hands.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	danced	dance	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl:unmarked	_	_
6	round	round	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	rubbed	rub	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dance** | past | Parsee |  |  | the skin | then; time |  | vn waltz-51.5 «NP V PP.trajectory PP.goal»: agent=Theme round skin=Trajectory |
| 2 | **rub** | past | Parsee *not said here* | Parsee's hands |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent hand=Theme |

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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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