---
title: ‘It’s a long time since we’ve hunted ‘em. — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘It’s a long time since we’ve hunted ‘em. Who acts: bit. 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/pg2781/5/32/)

<!-- 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/) / 32

# Just so stories, How the Leopard Got His Spots, sentence 32

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘It’s a long time since we’ve hunted ‘em.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** bit · **What happens:** be, hunt · **To what, where:** long time, we

<!-- .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 (bit), 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:pg2781:5:32
# text = ‘It’s a long time since we’ve hunted ‘em.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	since	since	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’ve	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	hunted	hunt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	advcl	_	_
11	‘	‘	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	em	em	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | bit | a long time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **hunt** | present · passive |  | we |  |  |  | ‘ em | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: subject=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 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/31/)
- next →: [sentence 33](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/33/)
- ↑ back to [How the Leopard Got His Spots](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/5/)