---
title: He doubled on his tracks, he ran at top speed, he entered a dozen bu… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: He doubled on his tracks, he ran at top speed, he entered a dozen burrows,--but all in vain. Who acts: Fox. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cat and the Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Cat and the Fox, sentence 14

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He doubled on his tracks, he ran at top speed, he entered a dozen burrows,--but all in vain.

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**Who acts:** Fox · **What happens:** double, run, enter · **To what, where:** tracks, top speed, dozen burrows

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cat and the Fox. 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.

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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:pg19994:114:14
# text = He doubled on his tracks, he ran at top speed, he entered a dozen burrows,--but all in vain.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	doubled	double	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	tracks	track	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	top	top	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	speed	speed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	entered	enter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	dozen	dozen	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	burrows	burrow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	23	nsubj	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	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 | **double** | past | Fox |  |  | Fox's tracks |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **run** | past | Fox |  |  | top speed |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at speed=Trajectory |
| 3 | **enter** | past | Fox | dozen burrows |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme burrow=Destination |

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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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