---
title: ‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid; and he held up Stickly-Prickly’s c… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid; and he held up Stickly-Prickly’s chin, while Stickly-Prickly kicked in the waters of the turbid Amazon. Who acts: escape, Stickly Prickly. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Beginning of the Armadillos, with its dependency tree and the pragmatic
---

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# Just so stories, The Beginning of the Armadillos, sentence 94

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‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid; and he held up Stickly-Prickly’s chin, while Stickly-Prickly kicked in the waters of the turbid Amazon.

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**Who acts:** escape, Stickly Prickly · **What happens:** say, hold up, kick · **To what, where:** Prickly chin, waters · **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 (escape, Stickly Prickly), 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:pg2781:8:94
# text = ‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid; and he held up Stickly-Prickly’s chin, while Stickly-Prickly kicked in the waters of the turbid Amazon.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Excellent	excellent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	Slow	slow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Solid	solid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
15	up	up	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	Stickly	stickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	Prickly	prickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’s	's	PART	POS	_	18	case	_	_
20	chin	chin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
23	Stickly	Stickly	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	25	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	Prickly	Prickly	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
26	kicked	kick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
27	in	in	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	waters	water	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
32	turbid	turbid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	33	amod	_	_
33	Amazon	amazon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	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 |  |  |  |  |  | slow *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hold up** | past | escape | Prickly chin |  |  |  |  | vn support-15.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot chin=Theme |
| 3 | **kick** | past | Stickly Prickly |  |  | the waters of the turbid Amazon |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V apart»: agent=Patient |

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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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