---
title: Curls up, but can’t swim-- Slow-Solid, that’s him!’ — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Curls up, but can’t swim-- Slow-Solid, that’s him!’ A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Beginning of the Armadillos, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, The Beginning of the Armadillos, sentence 147

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Curls up, but can’t swim-- Slow-Solid, that’s him!’

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**What happens:** curl up, not swim

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Beginning of the Armadillos. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg2781:8:147
# text = Curls up, but can’t swim-- Slow-Solid, that’s him!’
1	Curls	curl	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	up	up	ADP	RP	_	1	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
5	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	swim	swim	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
9	Slow	slow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Solid	solid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **curl up** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn coil-9.6-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **swim** | can |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «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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