---
title: In the very middle of those times was a Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog, an… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: In the very middle of those times was a Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog, and he lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon, eating shelly snails and things. Who acts: Beloved. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Beginning of the Armadillos, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/2/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Just so stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/) / [The Beginning of the Armadillos](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/) / 2

# Just so stories, The Beginning of the Armadillos, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In the very middle of those times was a Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog, and he lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon, eating shelly snails and things.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Beloved · **What happens:** be, live, eat · **To what, where:** Stickly Prickly Hedgehog, middle, banks, shelly snails

<!-- .vabout -->
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: who acts (Beloved), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2781:8:2
# text = In the very middle of those times was a Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog, and he lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon, eating shelly snails and things.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
7	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
10	Stickly	stickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Prickly	prickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	Hedgehog	Hedgehog	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	banks	bank	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	turbid	turbid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	Amazon	amazon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
26	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	advcl	_	_
27	shelly	shelly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	snails	snail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obj	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
30	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | a Stickly Prickly Hedgehog |  | the middle of that times |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **live** | past | Beloved | a Stickly Prickly Hedgehog *not said here* |  | the banks of the turbid Amazon |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme hedgehog=Location |
| 3 | **eat** | gerund | Beloved *not said here* | shelly snails and things |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent snail=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/3/)
- ↑ back to [The Beginning of the Armadillos](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/)