---
title: "And so far as shepherds are concerned, we all know they belong to t… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: "And so far as shepherds are concerned, we all know they belong to that puny race that pretends to be our masters." Who acts: shepherds, we, sheep, puny race. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Animals and the Plague, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/125/21/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Aesop for Children](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/) / [The Animals and the Plague](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/125/) / 21

# The Aesop for Children, The Animals and the Plague, sentence 21

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"And so far as shepherds are concerned, we all know they belong to that puny race that pretends to be our masters."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** shepherds, we, sheep, puny race · **What happens:** be, know, belong, pretend · **To what, where:** masters

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Animals and the Plague. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (shepherds, we, sheep, puny race), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg19994:125:21
# text = "And so far as shepherds are concerned, we all know they belong to that puny race that pretends to be our masters."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	advmod	_	_
5	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	shepherds	shepherd	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
7	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	concerned	concerned	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	12	advmod	_	_
12	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	parataxis	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	belong	belong	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
17	puny	puny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	race	race	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
20	pretends	pretend	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	acl:relcl	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
22	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	cop	_	_
23	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	masters	master	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | shepherds |  |  |  |  | concerned *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **know** *in a quote* | present | we |  |  |  |  | far *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **belong** *in a quote* | present | sheep |  |  |  |  | to that puny race | vn attend-107.4-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **pretend** *in a quote* | present | that puny race |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **is a** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | our masters |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/125/20/)
- next →: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/125/22/)
- ↑ back to [The Animals and the Plague](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/125/)