---
title: ‘I’ll make ‘em with the tips of my fingers,’ said the Ethiopian. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I’ll make ‘em with the tips of my fingers,’ said the Ethiopian. Who acts: I, Ethiopian. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Leopard Got His Spots, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/104/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Just so stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/) / [How the Leopard Got His Spots](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/) / 104

# Just so stories, How the Leopard Got His Spots, sentence 104

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I’ll make ‘em with the tips of my fingers,’ said the Ethiopian.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, Ethiopian · **What happens:** make, em, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Leopard Got His Spots. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, Ethiopian), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2781:5:104
# text = ‘I’ll make ‘em with the tips of my fingers,’ said the Ethiopian.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’ll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	ccomp	_	_
5	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	em	em	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	tips	tip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	Ethiopian	Ethiopian	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | future | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **em** | infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with the tips of my fingers | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Ethiopian |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 103](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/103/)
- next →: [sentence 105](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/105/)
- ↑ back to [How the Leopard Got His Spots](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/)