---
title: There was once a Wolf who got very little to eat because the Dogs of… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a Wolf who got very little to eat because the Dogs of the village were so wide awake and watchful. Who acts: Wolf, little, Dogs. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the House Dog, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Wolf and the House Dog, sentence 1

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There was once a Wolf who got very little to eat because the Dogs of the village were so wide awake and watchful.

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**Who acts:** Wolf, little, Dogs · **What happens:** be, get, eat · **To what, where:** little

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the House Dog. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Wolf, little, Dogs), 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:pg19994:107:1
# text = There was once a Wolf who got very little to eat because the Dogs of the village were so wide awake and watchful.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	7	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	Wolf	Wolf	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
8	very	very	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Dogs	dog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	village	village	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
18	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
19	so	so	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
20	wide	wide	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	awake	awake	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	advcl	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	watchful	watchful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past |  |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **get** | past | a Wolf | little |  |  |  | once *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer little=Stimulus |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | little *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past | the Dogs of the village |  |  |  |  | awake, wide *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  | the Dogs of the village *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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