---
title: ‘Would it surprise you very much to know that you show up in this da… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Would it surprise you very much to know that you show up in this dark place like a mustard-plaster on a sack of coals?’ Who acts: sunlight, you. 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 78

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‘Would it surprise you very much to know that you show up in this dark place like a mustard-plaster on a sack of coals?’

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**Who acts:** sunlight, you · **What happens:** surprise, know, show up · **To what, where:** you, dark place · **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 (sunlight, you), 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:pg2781:5:78
# text = ‘Would it surprise you very much to know that you show up in this dark place like a mustard-plaster on a sack of coals?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	surprise	surprise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	very	very	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	much	much	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	show	show	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
13	up	up	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	det	_	_
16	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
18	like	like	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
20	mustard	mustard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	plaster	plaster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	_
23	on	on	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	sack	sack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	coals	coal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **surprise** | would | sunlight | you |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus you=Experiencer |
| 2 | **know** | to-infinitive | sunlight *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **show up** | present | you |  |  | this dark place like a mustard plaster on a sack of coals |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in place=Location |

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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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