---
title: His sharp quills pricked them at every turn, and at last they polite… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: His sharp quills pricked them at every turn, and at last they politely asked him to leave. Who acts: sharp quills, 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 5

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His sharp quills pricked them at every turn, and at last they politely asked him to leave.

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**Who acts:** sharp quills, Snakes · **What happens:** prick, ask, leave · **To what, where:** Snakes, turn, Porcupine, last

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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 (sharp quills, 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:pg19994:119:5
# text = His sharp quills pricked them at every turn, and at last they politely asked him to leave.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
2	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	quills	quill	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	pricked	prick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	det	_	_
8	turn	turn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	obl	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	politely	politely	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	iobj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	leave	leave	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **prick** | past | Porcupine's sharp quills | Snakes *= snake* |  | every turn |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer they=Patient |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Snakes *= snake* |  | Porcupine | last |  | politely *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **leave** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Snakes *= snake* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «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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