---
title: An old Toad once informed all his neighbors that he was a learned do… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: An old Toad once informed all his neighbors that he was a learned doctor. Who acts: old Toad, Toad. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Quack Toad, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Quack Toad, sentence 1

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An old Toad once informed all his neighbors that he was a learned doctor.

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**Who acts:** old Toad, Toad · **What happens:** inform, learn, be · **To what, where:** neighbors, learned doctor · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Quack Toad. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old Toad, Toad), 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:pg19994:110:1
# text = An old Toad once informed all his neighbors that he was a learned doctor.
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Toad	toad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	5	advmod	_	_
5	informed	inform	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	8	det:predet	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	neighbors	neighbor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	learned	learn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	amod	_	_
14	doctor	doctor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **inform** *speech: other* | past | a old Toad | Toad's neighbors |  |  |  | once *property* | vn tell-37.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent neighbor=Recipient |
| 2 | **learn** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | past | Toad | a learned doctor |  |  |  |  | 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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