---
title: He took that skin, and he shook that skin, and he scrubbed that skin… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He took that skin, and he shook that skin, and he scrubbed that skin, and he rubbed that skin just as full of old, dry, stale, tickly cake-crumbs and some burned currants as ever it could possibly hold. Who acts: Parsee, skin. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Rhinoceros Go
---

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# Just so stories, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, sentence 23

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He took that skin, and he shook that skin, and he scrubbed that skin, and he rubbed that skin just as full of old, dry, stale, tickly cake-crumbs and some burned currants as ever it could possibly hold.

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**Who acts:** Parsee, skin · **What happens:** take, shake, scrub, rub, burn, hold · **To what, where:** skin

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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, skin), 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:pg2781:4:23
# text = He took that skin, and he shook that skin, and he scrubbed that skin, and he rubbed that skin just as full of old, dry, stale, tickly cake-crumbs and some burned currants as ever it could possibly hold.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
10	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	scrubbed	scrub	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
16	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	rubbed	rub	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
21	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
22	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	just	just	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
24	as	as	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	advcl	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
27	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
29	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
31	stale	stale	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
33	tickly	tickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
34	cake	cake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	34	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	crumbs	crumb	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obl	_	_
37	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	40	cc	_	_
38	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	40	det	_	_
39	burned	burn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	40	amod	_	_
40	currants	currant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	36	conj	_	_
41	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	46	mark	_	_
42	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	46	advmod	_	_
43	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	46	nsubj	_	_
44	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	46	aux	_	_
45	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	46	advmod	_	_
46	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
47	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | Parsee | that skin |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent skin=Theme |
| 2 | **shake** | past | Parsee | skin |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent skin=Patient |
| 3 | **scrub** | past | Parsee | skin |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent skin=Source |
| 4 | **rub** | past | Parsee | skin |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent skin=Theme |
| 5 | **burn** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **hold** | could | skin |  |  |  | ever | possibly *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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