---
title: Even a contemptible Ass let fly his heels and brayed his insults in… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: Even a contemptible Ass let fly his heels and brayed his insults in the face of the Lion. Who acts: contemptible Ass, Ass. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Old Lion, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Old Lion, sentence 7

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Even a contemptible Ass let fly his heels and brayed his insults in the face of the Lion.

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**Who acts:** contemptible Ass, Ass · **What happens:** let, fly, bray, insult · **To what, where:** heels, insults, face

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Old Lion. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (contemptible Ass, Ass), 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:pg19994:116:7
# text = Even a contemptible Ass let fly his heels and brayed his insults in the face of the Lion.
1	Even	even	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	contemptible	contemptible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	Ass	ass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	let	let	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	heels	heel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	brayed	bray	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	insults	insult	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	Lion	Lion	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** | past | a contemptible Ass |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **fly** | infinitive | a contemptible Ass *not said here* | Ass's heels |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location heel=Theme |
| 3 | **bray** | past | a contemptible Ass *not said here* | Ass's insults |  | the face of the Lion |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent insult=Topic |
| 4 | **insult** |  | Ass |  |  |  |  |  | nom insult «communication transitive»: 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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