---
title: Finding his Master seated at the dinner table, he kicked up his heel… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: Finding his Master seated at the dinner table, he kicked up his heels and, with a loud bray, pranced giddily around the table, upsetting it as he did so. Who acts: Master, Ass. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass and the Lap Dog, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/102/8/)

<!-- 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/) / 8

# The Aesop for Children, The Ass and the Lap Dog, sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Finding his Master seated at the dinner table, he kicked up his heels and, with a loud bray, pranced giddily around the table, upsetting it as he did so.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Master, Ass · **What happens:** find, seat, kick up, prance, upset, do · **To what, where:** dinner table, heels, loud bray, table

<!-- .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 (Master, Ass), 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:pg19994:102:8
# text = Finding his Master seated at the dinner table, he kicked up his heels and, with a loud bray, pranced giddily around the table, upsetting it as he did so.
1	Finding	find	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	nsubj	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	Master	Master	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	seated	seat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	table	table	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	kicked	kick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	up	up	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	heels	heel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	loud	loud	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	bray	bray	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
22	pranced	prance	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	20	acl	_	_
23	giddily	giddily	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
24	around	around	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	table	table	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
28	upsetting	upset	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	advcl	_	_
29	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	obj	_	_
30	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	32	mark	_	_
31	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	nsubj	_	_
32	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	advcl	_	_
33	so	so	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **seat** | past |  |  |  | the dinner table |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP.location V NP»: agent=Location |
| 3 | **kick up** | past | Master | Ass's heels |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent heel=Patient |
| 4 | **prance** | participle |  | a loud bray *not said here* |  | the table |  | giddily *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme around table=Trajectory |
| 5 | **upset** | gerund | Master *not said here* | table |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus it=Experiencer |
| 6 | **do** | past | Ass |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/102/7/)
- next →: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/102/9/)
- ↑ back to [The Ass and the Lap Dog](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/102/)