---
title: He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up things with it. Who acts: Beloved. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant’s Child, 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/pg2781/6/2/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Elephant’s Child](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/) / 2

# Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up things with it.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Beloved · **What happens:** have, wriggle, not pick up · **To what, where:** blackish bulgy nose, side, things

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant’s Child. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Beloved), 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:pg2781:6:2
# text = He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up things with it.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
5	blackish	blackish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	bulgy	bulgy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	as	as	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
12	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	boot	boot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	wriggle	wriggle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	conj	_	_
20	about	about	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	from	from	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
23	to	to	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	30	punct	_	_
26	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
27	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
28	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	30	advmod	_	_
30	pick	pick	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
31	up	up	ADP	RP	_	30	compound:prt	_	_
32	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	obj	_	_
33	with	with	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Beloved | a blackish bulgy nose |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nose=Patient |
| 2 | **wriggle** | could | Beloved |  |  | side |  | to side; about *property* | vn body\_internal\_motion-49.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **pick up** | could | Beloved | things |  |  |  | with side | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Topic |

<!-- .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 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/3/)
- ↑ back to [The Elephant’s Child](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/)