---
title: ‘But if I’m all this,’ said the Leopard, ‘why didn’t you go spotty t… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But if I’m all this,’ said the Leopard, ‘why didn’t you go spotty too?’ Who acts: I, Leopard, you. 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/pg2781/5/115/)

<!-- 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/) / 115

# Just so stories, How the Leopard Got His Spots, sentence 115

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘But if I’m all this,’ said the Leopard, ‘why didn’t you go spotty too?’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, Leopard, you · **What happens:** be, say, not go · **To what, where:** this · **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, Leopard, you), 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:pg2781:5:115
# text = ‘But if I’m all this,’ said the Leopard, ‘why didn’t you go spotty too?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’m	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
6	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	7	det:predet	_	_
7	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Leopard	Leopard	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
16	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
18	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	go	go	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
20	spotty	spotty	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	too	too	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | I | this |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot this=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Leopard |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **go** | past · do-support | you |  |  |  |  | spotty *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «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.

<!-- 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 114](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/114/)
- next →: [sentence 116](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/116/)
- ↑ back to [How the Leopard Got His Spots](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/)