---
title: The Goatherd tried to call it back, but in vain. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Goatherd tried to call it back, but in vain. Who acts: Goatherd. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Goatherd and the Goat, 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/pg19994/105/2/)

<!-- 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 Goatherd and the Goat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/105/) / 2

# The Aesop for Children, The Goatherd and the Goat, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Goatherd tried to call it back, but in vain.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Goatherd · **What happens:** try, call back · **To what, where:** Goatherd

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Goatherd and the Goat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Goatherd), 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:pg19994:105:2
# text = The Goatherd tried to call it back, but in vain.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Goatherd	Goatherd	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	back	back	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | the Goatherd |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **call back** *speech: assert* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the Goatherd *not said here* | Goatherd |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Recipient |

<!-- .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 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/105/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/105/3/)
- ↑ back to [The Goatherd and the Goat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/105/)