---
title: ‘Say that again and I’ll whistle up Dingo and run your hind legs off.’ — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Say that again and I’ll whistle up Dingo and run your hind legs off.’ Who acts: you, I. 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 53

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‘Say that again and I’ll whistle up Dingo and run your hind legs off.’

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** say, whistle up, run off · **To what, where:** that, Dingo, hind legs · **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 (you, I), 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:pg2781:7:53
# text = ‘Say that again and I’ll whistle up Dingo and run your hind legs off.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Say	say	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	obj	_	_
4	again	again	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’ll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	whistle	whistle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
9	up	up	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	Dingo	Dingo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	run	run	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
13	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	hind	hind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
16	off	off	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	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* | imperative | you *not said here* | that |  |  | again |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent that=Topic |
| 2 | **whistle up** | future | I | Dingo |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dingo=Topic |
| 3 | **run off** | infinitive | I *not said here* | your hind legs |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme leg=Trajectory |

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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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