---
title: But’--and then he scratched his head with his un-prickly paw--‘how d… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: But’--and then he scratched his head with his un-prickly paw--‘how do I know that this other is Tortoise?’ 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 38

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But’--and then he scratched his head with his un-prickly paw--‘how do I know that this other is Tortoise?’

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**Who acts:** Jaguar, I · **What happens:** scratch, know, be · **To what, where:** head, other Tortoise · **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:pg2781:8:38
# text = But’--and then he scratched his head with his un-prickly paw--‘how do I know that this other is Tortoise?’
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
5	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	scratched	scratch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
12	un-prickly	un-prickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	paw	paw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
17	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	parataxis	_	_
20	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
21	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	22	det	_	_
22	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
23	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
24	Tortoise	Tortoise	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **scratch** | past | Jaguar | Jaguar's head |  |  | then | with Jaguar's un-prickly paw | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient with paw=Instrument |
| 2 | **know** | present · do-support | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is a** | present |  | other Tortoise |  |  |  |  | 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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