---
title: ‘I shan’t tell you,’ said Stickly-Prickly, ‘but you can scoop me out… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I shan’t tell you,’ said Stickly-Prickly, ‘but you can scoop me out of my shell if you like.’ Who acts: I, you. 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 29

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‘I shan’t tell you,’ said Stickly-Prickly, ‘but you can scoop me out of my shell if you like.’

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**Who acts:** I, you · **What happens:** not tell, say, scoop, like · **To what, where:** you, me, shell · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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: who acts (I, 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:pg2781:8:29
# text = ‘I shan’t tell you,’ said Stickly-Prickly, ‘but you can scoop me out of my shell if you like.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	sha	sha	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
10	Stickly	stickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Prickly	prickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	scoop	scoop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
19	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	out	out	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
24	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
25	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	like	like	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* |  | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent you=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  | prickly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **scoop** | can | you | me |  | my shell |  |  | vn funnel-9.3 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent i=Theme out shell=Trajectory |
| 4 | **like** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |

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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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