---
title: As soon as he could speak he said, ‘Now I know he isn’t Tortoise at… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: As soon as he could speak he said, ‘Now I know he isn’t Tortoise at all. Who acts: Jaguar, I. 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 37

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As soon as he could speak he said, ‘Now I know he isn’t Tortoise at all.

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**Who acts:** Jaguar, I · **What happens:** speak, say, know, be · **To what, where:** n’t Tortoise, all · **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 (Jaguar, 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:pg2781:8:37
# text = As soon as he could speak he said, ‘Now I know he isn’t Tortoise at all.
1	As	as	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
3	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	n’t	n't	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	Tortoise	tortoise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	ccomp	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | could | Jaguar |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Jaguar |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **know** | present | I |  |  |  | now |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **is a** | present | Jaguar | n’t Tortoise |  | all |  |  | tree rules |

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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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