---
title: _It is cowardly to attack the defenseless, though he be an enemy. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: _It is cowardly to attack the defenseless, though he be an enemy. Who acts: face, Lion. 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 8

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\_It is cowardly to attack the defenseless, though he be an enemy.

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**Who acts:** face, Lion · **What happens:** be, attack · **To what, where:** defenseless, enemy

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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 (face, Lion), 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:pg19994:116:8
# text = _It is cowardly to attack the defenseless, though he be an enemy.
1	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	cowardly	cowardly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	attack	attack	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	defenseless	defenseless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	cop	_	_
13	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	enemy	enemy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | face |  |  |  |  | cowardly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **attack** | to-infinitive | face *not said here* | the defenseless |  |  |  |  | vn attack-60.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent defenseless=Patient |
| 3 | **is a** | infinitive | Lion | a enemy |  |  |  |  | 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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