---
title: _Do not try to gain favor by acting in a way that is contrary to you… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: _Do not try to gain favor by acting in a way that is contrary to your own nature and character. Who acts: _, way. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass and the Lap Dog, 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/pg19994/102/16/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Aesop for Children](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/) / [The Ass and the Lap Dog](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/102/) / 16

# The Aesop for Children, The Ass and the Lap Dog, sentence 16

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
\_Do not try to gain favor by acting in a way that is contrary to your own nature and character.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** \_, way · **What happens:** not try, gain, act, be · **To what, where:** favor, way

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass and the Lap Dog. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (\_, way), 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:pg19994:102:16
# text = _Do not try to gain favor by acting in a way that is contrary to your own nature and character.
1	_	_	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	Do	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	try	try	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	gain	gain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	favor	favor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
8	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
9	acting	act	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	contrary	contrary	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	acl:relcl	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	nature	nature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	character	character	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **try** | infinitive | \_ |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **gain** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | \_ *not said here* | favor |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent favor=Theme |
| 3 | **act** | gerund | \_ *not said here* |  |  | a way |  |  | vn act-114-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | present | a way |  |  |  |  | to your own nature and character; contrary *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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:** «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 19994 (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 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/102/15/)
- next →: [sentence 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/102/17/)
- ↑ back to [The Ass and the Lap Dog](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/102/)