---
title: ‘A Tortoise can’t curl himself up,’ Mother Jaguar went on, ever so m… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘A Tortoise can’t curl himself up,’ Mother Jaguar went on, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail. Who acts: Tortoise, curl Mother. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Beginning of the Armadillos, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/77/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Just so stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/) / [The Beginning of the Armadillos](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/) / 77

# Just so stories, The Beginning of the Armadillos, sentence 77

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘A Tortoise can’t curl himself up,’ Mother Jaguar went on, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Tortoise, curl Mother · **What happens:** not curl up, go on, wave · **To what, where:** Hedgehog, tail

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Tortoise, curl Mother), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2781:8:77
# text = ‘A Tortoise can’t curl himself up,’ Mother Jaguar went on, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Tortoise	tortoise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	curl	curl	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	compound	_	_
7	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	6	obj	_	_
8	up	up	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	's	PART	POS	_	6	obj	_	_
11	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	Jaguar	Jaguar	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	on	on	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	19	advmod	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	graciously	graciously	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	waving	wave	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
23	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **curl up** | can | a Tortoise | Hedgehog |  |  |  |  | vn rotate-51.9.1-1 «NP.agent V NP.theme NP.extent»: agent=Agent himself=Theme 's=Extent |
| 2 | **go on** | past | curl Mother |  |  |  | time |  | vn function-105.2.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **wave** | gerund | curl Mother *not said here* | mother's tail |  |  |  | graciously *property* | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/76/)
- next →: [sentence 78](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/78/)
- ↑ back to [The Beginning of the Armadillos](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/)