---
title: He told me I ought to change; and as I’ve nothing to change except m… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He told me I ought to change; and as I’ve nothing to change except my skin I’m going to change that.’ Who acts: Baviaan, 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 82

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He told me I ought to change; and as I’ve nothing to change except my skin I’m going to change that.’

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**Who acts:** Baviaan, I · **What happens:** tell, change, have, be, go · **To what, where:** me, nothing, that · **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 (Baviaan, 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:pg2781:5:82
# text = He told me I ought to change; and as I’ve nothing to change except my skin I’m going to change that.’
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	change	change	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
10	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’ve	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	12	obj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	change	change	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl	_	_
16	except	except	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
19	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’m	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
21	going	go	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	20	xcomp	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	change	change	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
24	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	NFP	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | Baviaan |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **change** *not said to happen* | ought | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **have** | present | I | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 4 | **change** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  | except my skin | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **be** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **go** | gerund | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 7 | **change** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | that |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Patient |

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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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