---
title: Then said Nqong, who is always a gentleman, ‘Why aren’t you grateful… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Then said Nqong, who is always a gentleman, ‘Why aren’t you grateful to Yellow-Dog Dingo? Who acts: Nqong, you. 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 44

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Then said Nqong, who is always a gentleman, ‘Why aren’t you grateful to Yellow-Dog Dingo?

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**Who acts:** Nqong, you · **What happens:** say, be, not be · **To what, where:** gentleman · **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, you), 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:pg2781:7:44
# text = Then said Nqong, who is always a gentleman, ‘Why aren’t you grateful to Yellow-Dog Dingo?
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	Nqong	Nqong	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
5	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
7	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	9	advmod	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
13	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	grateful	grateful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	Yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	Dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
21	Dingo	Dingo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	appos	_	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 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Nqong |  |  |  | then |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | Nqong | a gentleman |  |  |  | always *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **is** | present | you |  |  |  |  | to Yellow Dog; grateful *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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