---
title: I can smell Zebra, and I can hear Zebra, but I can’t see Zebra.’ — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: I can smell Zebra, and I can hear Zebra, but I can’t see Zebra.’ Who acts: I. 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 30

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I can smell Zebra, and I can hear Zebra, but I can’t see Zebra.’

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** smell, hear, not see · **To what, where:** Zebra

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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 (I), 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:pg2781:5:30
# text = I can smell Zebra, and I can hear Zebra, but I can’t see Zebra.’
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	smell	smell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	Zebra	Zebra	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
10	Zebra	Zebra	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
17	Zebra	Zebra	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **smell** | can | I | Zebra |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer zebra=Stimulus |
| 2 | **hear** | can | I | Zebra |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer zebra=Stimulus |
| 3 | **not** **see** | can | I | Zebra |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer zebra=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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