Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 67

Before he thought what he was doing the Elephant’s Child put out his trunk and plucked a large bundle of grass, dusted it clean against his fore-legs, and stuffed it into his own mouth.

Who acts: Elephant, Child · What happens: think, do, put out, pluck, dust, stuff · To what, where: trunk, large bundle, bundle, own mouth · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant’s Child. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Elephant, Child), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Before	before	SCONJ	_	3 thought	mark
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 thought	nsubj
3	thought	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	7 doing	obj
5	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 doing	nsubj
6	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 doing	aux
7	doing	do	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 thought	ccomp
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 Elephant	det
9	Elephant	Elephant	PROPN	Number=Sing	11 Child	nmod:poss
10	’s	's	PART	_	9 Elephant	case
11	Child	child	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 put	nsubj
12	put	put	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 thought	parataxis
13	out	out	ADP	_	12 put	compound:prt
14	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	15 trunk	nmod:poss
15	trunk	trunk	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 put	obj
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 plucked	cc
17	plucked	pluck	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 put	conj
18	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	20 bundle	det
19	large	large	ADJ	Degree=Pos	20 bundle	amod
20	bundle	bundle	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 plucked	obj
21	of	of	ADP	_	22 grass	case
22	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 bundle	nmod
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 dusted	punct
24	dusted	dust	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 put	conj
25	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 dusted	obj
26	clean	clean	ADJ	Degree=Pos	24 dusted	xcomp
27	against	against	ADP	_	31 legs	case
28	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 legs	nmod:poss
29	fore	fore	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 legs	compound
30	-	-	PUNCT	_	29 fore	punct
31	legs	leg	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 clean	obl
32	,	,	PUNCT	_	34 stuffed	punct
33	and	and	CCONJ	_	34 stuffed	cc
34	stuffed	stuff	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 thought	conj
35	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	34 stuffed	obj
36	into	into	ADP	_	39 mouth	case
37	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	39 mouth	nmod:poss
38	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	39 mouth	amod
39	mouth	mouth	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 stuffed	obl
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 thought	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	think speech: other	past	Elephant				vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	do	past · progressive	Elephant				vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality
3	put out	past	the Elephant's Child	Elephant's trunk			vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent trunk=Goal
4	pluck	past	the Elephant's Child not said here	a large bundle of grass			vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bundle=Patient
5	dust	past	the Elephant's Child not said here	bundle		clean property	vn wipe_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent it=Theme
6	stuff	past	Elephant not said here	bundle	Elephant's own mouth		vn spray-9.7-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme into mouth=Destination

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.

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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/6/67/