---
title: ‘’Scuse me,’ said the Elephant’s Child, ‘but could you kindly tell m… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘’Scuse me,’ said the Elephant’s Child, ‘but could you kindly tell me what he has for dinner?’ Who acts: you, Child. 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/pg2781/6/28/)

<!-- 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/) / 28

# Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 28

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘’Scuse me,’ said the Elephant’s Child, ‘but could you kindly tell me what he has for dinner?’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, Child · **What happens:** scuse, say, tell, have · **To what, where:** me, Child · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .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 (you, Child), 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:pg2781:6:28
# text = ‘’Scuse me,’ said the Elephant’s Child, ‘but could you kindly tell me what he has for dinner?’
1	‘’	‘'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Scuse	scuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Elephant	Elephant	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’s	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	Child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	kindly	kindly	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	tell	tell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
18	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	iobj	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	21	obj	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **scuse** | infinitive |  | me |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the Elephant's Child |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | could | you |  | me |  |  | kindly *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **have** | present | Child |  |  |  |  | for dinner | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Patient |

<!-- .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 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/27/)
- next →: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/29/)
- ↑ back to [The Elephant’s Child](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/)