---
title: A passerby heard his cries and asked what had happened. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: A passerby heard his cries and asked what had happened. Who acts: passerby, Miser. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Miser, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Miser, sentence 6

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A passerby heard his cries and asked what had happened.

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**Who acts:** passerby, Miser · **What happens:** hear, ask, happen, cry · **To what, where:** cries · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Miser. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (passerby, Miser), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**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:pg19994:106:6
# text = A passerby heard his cries and asked what had happened.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	passerby	passerby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	cries	cry	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	nsubj	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | a passerby | Miser's cries |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer cry=Stimulus |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | a passerby *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **happen** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **cry** |  | Miser |  |  |  |  |  | nom cry «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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.

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**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.

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