---
title: Kangaroo bounded away, His back-legs working like pistons-- Bounded… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Kangaroo bounded away, His back-legs working like pistons-- Bounded from morning till dark, Twenty-five feet to a bound. Who acts: back legs. 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 63

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Kangaroo bounded away, His back-legs working like pistons-- Bounded from morning till dark, Twenty-five feet to a bound.

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**Who acts:** back legs · **What happens:** bound away, work, bound · **To what, where:** Kangaroo, five feet, pistons

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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 (back legs), 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:pg2781:7:63
# text = Kangaroo bounded away, His back-legs working like pistons-- Bounded from morning till dark, Twenty-five feet to a bound.
1	Kangaroo	kangaroo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
2	bounded	bound	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	1	acl	_	_
3	away	away	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
6	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	conj	_	_
9	working	work	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	like	like	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	pistons	piston	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	Bounded	bound	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
14	from	from	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
16	till	till	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	Twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	22	nummod	_	_
22	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
23	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	bound	bound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bound away** | participle |  | Kangaroo and Kangaroo's back legs *not said here* |  |  |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **work** | gerund | Kangaroo's back legs *not said here* | five feet |  |  |  | like pistons; to a bound | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **bound** | participle |  | pistons *not said here* |  |  | till dark; morning |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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