---
title: You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting thr… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie right across the centre of a path and look like nothing in particular. Who acts: You, sunshine. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Leopard Got His Spots, with its dependency 
---

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# Just so stories, How the Leopard Got His Spots, sentence 113

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You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie right across the centre of a path and look like nothing in particular.

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**Who acts:** You, sunshine · **What happens:** lie out, look, sift, lie · **To what, where:** leafy branch, leaves, centre

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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 (You, sunshine), 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:pg2781:5:113
# text = You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie right across the centre of a path and look like nothing in particular.
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	lie	lie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	out	out	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	leafy	leafy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	branch	branch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	look	look	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	like	like	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	sunshine	sunshine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
13	sifting	sift	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	acl	_	_
14	through	through	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	leaves	leaf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	lie	lie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
22	right	right	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
23	across	across	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	centre	centre	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	path	path	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
30	look	look	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	21	conj	_	_
31	like	like	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	30	obl	_	_
33	in	in	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	particular	particular	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie out** | can | You |  |  | a leafy branch |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on branch=Location |
| 2 | **look** | infinitive | You *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like sunshine | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **sift** | gerund | sunshine *not said here* |  |  | the leaves |  |  | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent through leaf=Location |
| 4 | **lie** | can | you |  |  | the centre of a path |  | right *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **look** | infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like nothing | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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