---
title: ‘For goodness’ sake,’ said the Leopard at tea-time, ‘let us wait til… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘For goodness’ sake,’ said the Leopard at tea-time, ‘let us wait till it gets dark. Who acts: Leopard, us, sake. 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 41

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‘For goodness’ sake,’ said the Leopard at tea-time, ‘let us wait till it gets dark.

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**Who acts:** Leopard, us, sake · **What happens:** say, let, wait, get · **To what, where:** us · **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 (Leopard, us, sake), 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:pg2781:5:41
# text = ‘For goodness’ sake,’ said the Leopard at tea-time, ‘let us wait till it gets dark.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	For	for	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	goodness	goodness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
5	sake	sake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Leopard	Leopard	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	tea	tea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
18	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	wait	wait	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
20	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	gets	get	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
23	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Leopard |  |  |  | time | for goodness sake | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **let** | infinitive |  | us |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **wait** | infinitive | us *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **get** | present | sake |  |  |  |  | dark *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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