---
title: A Shepherd, counting his Sheep one day, discovered that a number of… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: A Shepherd, counting his Sheep one day, discovered that a number of them were missing. Who acts: Shepherd, number. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Shepherd and the Lion, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Shepherd and the Lion, sentence 1

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A Shepherd, counting his Sheep one day, discovered that a number of them were missing.

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**Who acts:** Shepherd, number · **What happens:** count, discover, be · **To what, where:** Sheep

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Shepherd and the Lion. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Shepherd, number), 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:pg19994:126:1
# text = A Shepherd, counting his Sheep one day, discovered that a number of them were missing.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Shepherd	shepherd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	counting	count	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	Sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
8	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
10	discovered	discover	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nmod	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	missing	missing	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **count** | gerund | a Shepherd *not said here* | Shepherd's Sheep |  |  | day |  | vn multiply-108 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sheep=Theme |
| 2 | **discover** | past | a Shepherd |  |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V PP.topic S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | a number of Sheep |  |  |  |  | missing *property* | 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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