---
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, ‘by the prickles in your paddy-paw I see that that must have been a Hedgehog. Who acts: Son, I, that. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Beginning of the Armadillos, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# Just so stories, The Beginning of the Armadillos, sentence 68

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‘Son, son!’ said his mother ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, ‘by the prickles in your paddy-paw I see that that must have been a Hedgehog.

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**Who acts:** Son, I, that · **What happens:** say, wave, see, be · **To what, where:** mother, tail, paddy paw, Hedgehog · **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, I, that), 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:pg2781:8:68
# text = ‘Son, son!’ said his mother ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, ‘by the prickles in your paddy-paw I see that that must have been a Hedgehog.
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	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	by	by	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	prickles	prickle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
25	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
26	paddy	paddy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	paw	paw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	_
29	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
30	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	acl:relcl	_	_
31	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	37	mark	_	_
32	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	37	nsubj	_	_
33	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	37	aux	_	_
34	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	37	aux	_	_
35	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	37	cop	_	_
36	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
37	Hedgehog	Hedgehog	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	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 |  |  |  | by the prickles in your paddy paw; graciously *property* | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=Patient |
| 3 | **see** | present | I | your paddy paw *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer paw=Stimulus |
| 4 | **is a** | must · perfect | that | a Hedgehog |  |  |  |  | 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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