--- title: In Aesop's old fable, a fox can't reach some grapes and walks off sa… — Reading a story: characters, plot and setting · tree and pragmatics description: In Aesop's old fable, a fox can't reach some grapes and walks off saying, «They're sour anyway.» It teaches that people sometimes pretend they never wanted what they couldn't get. Who acts: fox, grapes, people. A sentence of the lesson «Reading a story: characters, plot and setting» of the english c --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/22-reading-a-story-characters-plot-and-setting/10/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / [Reading a story: characters, plot and…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/22-reading-a-story-characters-plot-and-setting/) / 10 # Reading a story: characters, plot and setting, sentence 10 In Aesop's old fable, a fox can't reach some grapes and walks off saying, «They're sour anyway.» It teaches that people sometimes pretend they never wanted what they couldn't get. **Who acts:** fox, grapes, people · **What happens:** not reach, walk off, say, be, teach, pretend · **To what, where:** grapes, old fable · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Reading a story: characters, plot and setting» of the english course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fox, grapes, people), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:english:022-reading-a-story-characters-plot-and-setting.lesson:10 # text = In Aesop's old fable, a fox can't reach some grapes and walks off saying, «They're sour anyway.» It teaches that people sometimes pretend they never wanted what they couldn't get. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = english # lesson = 022-reading-a-story-characters-plot-and-setting.lesson # annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R7-rel-agree ×2 1 In in ADP IN _ 5 case _ _ 2 Aesop Aesop PROPN NNP Number=Sing 5 nmod:poss _ _ 3 's 's PART POS _ 2 case _ _ 4 old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 5 amod _ _ 5 fable fable NOUN NN Number=Sing 11 obl _ _ 6 , , PUNCT , _ 5 punct _ _ 7 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 8 det _ _ 8 fox fox NOUN NN Number=Sing 11 nsubj _ _ 9 ca can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 11 aux _ _ 10 n't not PART RB Polarity=Neg 11 advmod _ _ 11 reach reach VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 12 some some DET DT PronType=Ind 13 det _ _ 13 grapes grape NOUN NNS Number=Plur 11 obj _ _ 14 and and CCONJ CC _ 15 cc _ _ 15 walks walk VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 11 conj _ _ 16 off off ADP RP _ 15 compound:prt _ _ 17 saying say VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 15 advcl _ _ 18 , , PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 19 « « PUNCT `` _ 22 punct _ _ 20 They they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 22 nsubj _ _ 21 're be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 22 cop _ _ 22 sour sour ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 17 ccomp _ _ 23 anyway anyway ADV RB _ 22 advmod _ _ 24 . . PUNCT . _ 11 punct _ _ 25 » » PUNCT '' _ 11 punct _ _ 26 It it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 27 nsubj _ _ 27 teaches teach VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 11 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=11:advcl 28 that that SCONJ IN _ 31 mark _ _ 29 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 31 nsubj _ _ 30 sometimes sometimes ADV RB PronType=Ind 31 advmod _ _ 31 pretend pretend VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 27 ccomp _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=27:advcl 32 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 34 nsubj _ _ 33 never never ADV RB PronType=Neg 34 advmod _ _ 34 wanted want VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 31 ccomp _ _ 35 what what PRON WP PronType=Int 39 obj _ _ 36 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 39 nsubj _ _ 37 could could AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 39 aux _ _ 38 n't not PART RB Polarity=Neg 39 advmod _ _ 39 get get VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 34 ccomp _ _ 40 . . PUNCT . _ 11 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **not** **reach** | can | a fox | some grapes | | Aesop's old fable | | | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent grape=Theme | | 2 | **walk off** | present | a fox *not said here* | | | | | | vn resign-10.11-2 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | a fox *not said here* | | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **is** *in a quote* | present | grapes *= grape* | | | | | anyway, sour *property* | tree rules | | 5 | **teach** *speech: other* | present | fox | | | | | | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 6 | **pretend** | present | people | | | | | sometimes *property* | tree rules | | 7 | **not** **want** | past | people | | | | | | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme | | 8 | **not** **get** | could | people | | | | | | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus | 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. **Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:english:022-reading-a-story-characters-plot-and-setting.lesson:10`. **The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R7-rel-agree ×2. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence. See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/). - ← previous: [Reading a story: characters, plot and…, 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/22-reading-a-story-characters-plot-and-setting/9/) - next →: [Reading a story: characters, plot and…, 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/22-reading-a-story-characters-plot-and-setting/11/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/22-reading-a-story-characters-plot-and-setting/)