---
title: ‘Son, son!’ said his mother ever so many times, graciously waving he… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Son, son!’ said his mother ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, ‘what have you been doing that you shouldn’t have done?’ Who acts: Son, 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 66

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‘Son, son!’ said his mother ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, ‘what have you been doing that you shouldn’t have done?’

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**Who acts:** Son, you · **What happens:** say, wave, do, not do · **To what, where:** mother, tail · **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 (Son, 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:pg2781:8:66
# text = ‘Son, son!’ said his mother ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, ‘what have you been doing that you shouldn’t have done?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Son	Son	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	said	say	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	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	12	advmod	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	graciously	graciously	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	waving	wave	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	22	obj	_	_
22	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
23	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
24	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	25	aux	_	_
25	doing	do	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	conj	_	_
26	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
27	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
28	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	31	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	31	advmod	_	_
30	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	31	aux	_	_
31	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	25	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Son | son's mother |  |  | time |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent mother=Topic |
| 2 | **wave** | gerund | Son *not said here* | mother's tail |  |  |  | graciously *property* | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=Patient |
| 3 | **do** | present · perfect · progressive | Son *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **do** | should · perfect | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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