---
title: He was grey and he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate: he danc… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: He was grey and he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate: he danced on an outcrop in the middle of Australia, and he went to the Little God Nqa. Who acts: Kangaroo, pride. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Sing-song of Old Man Kangaroo, with its dependency tree and the pragm
---

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# Just so stories, The Sing-song of Old Man Kangaroo, sentence 2

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He was grey and he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate: he danced on an outcrop in the middle of Australia, and he went to the Little God Nqa.

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**Who acts:** Kangaroo, pride · **What happens:** be, dance, go, pride · **To what, where:** outcrop, God Nqa

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Sing-song of Old Man Kangaroo. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Kangaroo, pride), 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:pg2781:7:2
# text = He was grey and he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate: he danced on an outcrop in the middle of Australia, and he went to the Little God Nqa.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	grey	grey	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	woolly	woolly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	pride	pride	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	inordinate	inordinate	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	danced	dance	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	outcrop	outcrop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	Australia	Australia	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
27	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
29	to	to	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
31	Little	Little	ADJ	NNP	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	33	compound	_	_
33	Nqa	Nqa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Kangaroo |  |  |  |  | grey *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | Kangaroo |  |  |  |  | woolly *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | Kangaroo's pride |  |  |  |  | inordinate *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **dance** | past | Kangaroo |  |  | a outcrop |  | in the middle of Australia | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on outcrop=Location |
| 5 | **go** | past | Kangaroo |  |  | the God Nqa |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to nqa=Initial\_Location |
| 6 | **pride** |  | Kangaroo |  |  |  |  |  | nom pride «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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