---
title: Then that bad Elephant’s Child spanked all his dear families for a l… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Then that bad Elephant’s Child spanked all his dear families for a long time, till they were very warm and greatly astonished. Who acts: Child, families. 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 98

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Then that bad Elephant’s Child spanked all his dear families for a long time, till they were very warm and greatly astonished.

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**Who acts:** Child, families · **What happens:** spank, be · **To what, where:** dear families

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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, families), 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:pg2781:6:98
# text = Then that bad Elephant’s Child spanked all his dear families for a long time, till they were very warm and greatly astonished.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	_
2	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
3	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	Elephant	Elephant	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’s	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	Child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	spanked	spank	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	11	det:predet	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	families	family	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
12	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
20	very	very	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	warm	warm	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	parataxis	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
23	greatly	greatly	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	astonished	astonished	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spank** | past | bad Elephant's Child | Child's dear families |  |  | then; time |  | vn spank-18.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent family=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | past | families *= family* |  |  |  |  | warm *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | families *= family* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | greatly *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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