---
title: A Fox, swimming across a river, was barely able to reach the bank, w… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: A Fox, swimming across a river, was barely able to reach the bank, where he lay bruised and exhausted from his struggle with the swift current. Who acts: Fox. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Hedgehog, 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/pg19994/108/1/)

<!-- 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 Fox and the Hedgehog](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/108/) / 1

# The Aesop for Children, The Fox and the Hedgehog, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A Fox, swimming across a river, was barely able to reach the bank, where he lay bruised and exhausted from his struggle with the swift current.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Fox · **What happens:** swim, be, reach, bruise, exhaust, struggle · **To what, where:** river, bank, Fox, struggle

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Hedgehog. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fox), 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:pg19994:108:1
# text = A Fox, swimming across a river, was barely able to reach the bank, where he lay bruised and exhausted from his struggle with the swift current.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	swimming	swim	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
5	across	across	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	barely	barely	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	bank	bank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	20	advmod	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux:pass	_	_
20	bruised	bruise	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	acl:relcl	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	exhausted	exhaust	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	20	conj	_	_
23	from	from	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	struggle	struggle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
26	with	with	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	swift	swift	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	current	current	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** | gerund | a Fox *not said here* |  |  | a river |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme across river=Trajectory |
| 2 | **is** | past | a Fox |  |  |  |  | able, barely *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **reach** | to-infinitive | a Fox *not said here* | the bank |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent bank=Theme |
| 4 | **bruise** | past · passive |  | Fox |  |  |  |  | vn carve-21.2-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 5 | **exhaust** | participle |  |  |  | Fox's struggle with the swift current |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 6 | **struggle** |  | Fox |  |  |  |  | with the swift current | nom struggle «act intransitive»: poss=agent with=obl |

<!-- .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: [The Wolf and the House Dog, 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/107/31/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/108/2/)
- ↑ back to [The Fox and the Hedgehog](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/108/)