---
title: The Snakes soon wished they had not given him permission to stay. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Snakes soon wished they had not given him permission to stay. Who acts: Snakes. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Porcupine and the Snakes, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Porcupine and the Snakes, sentence 4

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The Snakes soon wished they had not given him permission to stay.

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**Who acts:** Snakes · **What happens:** wish, not give, stay · **To what, where:** permission, Porcupine · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Porcupine and the Snakes. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Snakes), 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:pg19994:119:4
# text = The Snakes soon wished they had not given him permission to stay.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Snakes	snake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
4	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	given	give	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	ccomp	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	iobj	_	_
10	permission	permission	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	stay	stay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wish** | past | the Snakes |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **give** | past · perfect | Snakes *= snake* | permission | Porcupine |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient permission=Theme |
| 3 | **stay** | to-infinitive | Snakes *= snake* *not said here* | permission *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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