---
title: Then came Nqong from his bath in the salt-pans, and said, ‘It’s five… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Then came Nqong from his bath in the salt-pans, and said, ‘It’s five o’clock.’ Who acts: Nqong. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Sing-song of Old Man Kangaroo, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, The Sing-song of Old Man Kangaroo, sentence 41

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Then came Nqong from his bath in the salt-pans, and said, ‘It’s five o’clock.’

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**Who acts:** Nqong · **What happens:** come, say · **To what, where:** bath · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Nqong), 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:pg2781:7:41
# text = Then came Nqong from his bath in the salt-pans, and said, ‘It’s five o’clock.’
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	Nqong	Nqong	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
4	from	from	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	bath	bath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	salt	salt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	pans	pan	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	ccomp	_	_
19	five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	nummod	_	_
20	o’clock	o'clock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | Nqong |  |  | Nqong's bath in the salt pans | then |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from bath=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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