---
title: Then the Elephant’s Child grew all breathless, and panted, and kneel… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the Elephant’s Child grew all breathless, and panted, and kneeled down on the bank and said, ‘You are the very person I have been looking for all these long days. Who acts: Child, You, I. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant’s Child, with its dependency tree and the 
---

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# Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 39

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Then the Elephant’s Child grew all breathless, and panted, and kneeled down on the bank and said, ‘You are the very person I have been looking for all these long days.

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**Who acts:** Child, You, I · **What happens:** grow, pant, kneele down, say, be, look · **To what, where:** bank, person · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Child, You, I), 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:pg2781:6:39
# text = Then the Elephant’s Child grew all breathless, and panted, and kneeled down on the bank and said, ‘You are the very person I have been looking for all these long days.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Elephant	Elephant	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	Child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	all	all	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	breathless	breathless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	panted	pant	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	kneeled	kneele	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	conj	_	_
15	down	down	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	bank	bank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
22	‘	‘	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
24	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
26	very	very	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	ccomp	_	_
28	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
29	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	31	aux	_	_
30	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	31	aux	_	_
31	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	27	acl:relcl	_	_
32	for	for	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
33	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	36	det:predet	_	_
34	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	36	det	_	_
35	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
36	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | past | the Elephant's Child |  |  |  | then | breathless *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **pant** | participle | the Elephant's Child *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **kneele down** | participle | the Elephant's Child *not said here* |  |  | the bank |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Elephant's Child *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is a** | present | You | the person |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **look** | present · perfect · progressive | I | the person *not said here* |  |  | day |  | vn seem-109-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme person=Attribute |

<!-- .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.

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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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