---
title: Presently he heard a grunt and a crash and a scramble, and the Ethio… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Presently he heard a grunt and a crash and a scramble, and the Ethiopian called out, ‘I’ve caught a thing that I can’t see. Who acts: Zebra, 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 46

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Presently he heard a grunt and a crash and a scramble, and the Ethiopian called out, ‘I’ve caught a thing that I can’t see.

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**Who acts:** Zebra, I · **What happens:** hear, call out, catch, not see · **To what, where:** grunt, Ethiopian, I, thing

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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 (Zebra, 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:pg2781:5:46
# text = Presently he heard a grunt and a crash and a scramble, and the Ethiopian called out, ‘I’ve caught a thing that I can’t see.
1	Presently	presently	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	grunt	grunt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	crash	crash	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	scramble	scramble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Ethiopian	Ethiopian	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’ve	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux:pass	_	_
22	caught	catch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	29	obj	_	_
26	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
27	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	29	advmod	_	_
29	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | Zebra | a grunt and a crash and a scramble |  |  |  | presently *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer grunt=Stimulus |
| 2 | **call out** *speech: assert* | participle · passive |  | the Ethiopian |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 3 | **catch** | present · passive |  | I |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: subject=Beneficiary thing=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **see** | can | I | a thing |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer that=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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