---
title: When he felt lonely walking through Africa he sang to himself down h… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: When he felt lonely walking through Africa he sang to himself down his trunk, and the noise was louder than several brass bands. Who acts: Child, noise. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant’s Child, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 84

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When he felt lonely walking through Africa he sang to himself down his trunk, and the noise was louder than several brass bands.

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**Who acts:** Child, noise · **What happens:** feel, walk, sing down, be · **To what, where:** Africa, trunk, Child

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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, noise), 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:pg2781:6:84
# text = When he felt lonely walking through Africa he sang to himself down his trunk, and the noise was louder than several brass bands.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	lonely	lonely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
5	walking	walk	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	xcomp	_	_
6	through	through	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	Africa	Africa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obl	_	_
12	down	down	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	trunk	trunk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	noise	noise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	louder	loud	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	advmod	_	_
21	than	than	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
23	brass	brass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	_
24	bands	band	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **feel** | past | Child |  |  |  |  | lonely *property* | vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **walk** | gerund | Child *not said here* |  |  | Africa |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through africa=Trajectory |
| 3 | **sing down** *speech: express* | past | Child | Child's trunk | Child |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent trunk=Topic to himself=Recipient |
| 4 | **is** | past | the noise |  |  |  |  | than several brass bands; loud *property* | tree rules |

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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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