---
title: ‘But it’s very useful,’ and he picked up his hairy uncle, the Baboon… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But it’s very useful,’ and he picked up his hairy uncle, the Baboon, by one hairy leg, and hove him into a hornet’s nest. Who acts: dinner, Child. 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 97

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‘But it’s very useful,’ and he picked up his hairy uncle, the Baboon, by one hairy leg, and hove him into a hornet’s nest.

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**Who acts:** dinner, Child · **What happens:** be, pick up, hove · **To what, where:** hairy uncle, Child, nest

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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 (dinner, Child), 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:pg2781:6:97
# text = ‘But it’s very useful,’ and he picked up his hairy uncle, the Baboon, by one hairy leg, and hove him into a hornet’s nest.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	useful	useful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	up	up	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	hairy	hairy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	uncle	uncle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	Baboon	Baboon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	by	by	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	23	nummod	_	_
22	hairy	hairy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	leg	leg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	hove	hove	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
27	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	_
28	into	into	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	hornet	hornet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	’s	's	PART	POS	_	30	case	_	_
32	nest	nest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | dinner |  |  |  |  | useful *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **pick up** | past | Child | Child's hairy uncle |  |  |  | by one hairy leg | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent uncle=Topic |
| 3 | **hove** | infinitive | dinner *not said here* | Child |  | a hornet's nest |  |  | 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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