---
title: Oh, now and then you will hear grown-ups say, ‘Can the Ethiopian cha… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Oh, now and then you will hear grown-ups say, ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots?’ Who acts: you, grown ups, 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.
---

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# Just so stories, How the Leopard Got His Spots, sentence 120

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Oh, now and then you will hear grown-ups say, ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots?’

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**Who acts:** you, grown ups, Ethiopian · **What happens:** hear, grow, say, change · **To what, where:** skin · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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, grown ups, Ethiopian), 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:pg2781:5:120
# text = Oh, now and then you will hear grown-ups say, ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots?’
1	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	8	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	conj	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	grown	grow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	ups	up	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	Can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	Ethiopian	Ethiopian	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	change	change	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
19	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	Leopard	Leopard	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	spots	spot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | future | you |  |  |  | now |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **grow** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | grown ups |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **change** | can | the Ethiopian | Ethiopian's skin or the Leopard |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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