---
title: Then he uncurled his trunk and knocked two of his dear brothers head… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Then he uncurled his trunk and knocked two of his dear brothers head over heels. Who acts: 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/pg2781/6/91/)

<!-- 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/) / 91

# Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 91

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then he uncurled his trunk and knocked two of his dear brothers head over heels.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Child · **What happens:** uncurl, knock · **To what, where:** trunk, two, heels

<!-- .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 (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:pg2781:6:91
# text = Then he uncurled his trunk and knocked two of his dear brothers head over heels.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	uncurled	uncurl	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	trunk	trunk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	knocked	knock	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
8	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
11	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	compound	_	_
13	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
14	over	over	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	heels	heel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **uncurl** | past | Child | Child's trunk |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **knock** | past | Child *not said here* | two of Child's brothers head |  | heels |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent two=Theme over heel=Destination |

<!-- .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 90](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/90/)
- next →: [sentence 92](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/92/)
- ↑ back to [The Elephant’s Child](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/)