---
title: So she asked him if he knew someone who would answer for him. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: So she asked him if he knew someone who would answer for him. Who acts: runner, Sheep. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Stag, the Sheep, and the Wolf, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Stag, the Sheep, and the Wolf, sentence 3

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So she asked him if he knew someone who would answer for him.

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**Who acts:** runner, Sheep · **What happens:** ask, know, answer · **To what, where:** Sheep, someone

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Stag, the Sheep, and the Wolf. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (runner, Sheep), 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:pg19994:124:3
# text = So she asked him if he knew someone who would answer for him.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
8	someone	someone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	7	obj	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
10	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | runner |  | Sheep |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 2 | **know** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | Sheep | someone |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer someone=Stimulus |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | would |  |  |  |  |  | for Sheep | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=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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