---
title: The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a l… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a little of that, and by her manner making it very plain that she ate the simple food only to be polite. Who acts: Town Mouse, Mouse. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, with its depen
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a little of that, and by her manner making it very plain that she ate the simple food only to be polite.

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**Who acts:** Town Mouse, Mouse · **What happens:** eat, nibble, make, be · **To what, where:** little, manner, simple food

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Town Mouse, Mouse), 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:pg19994:13:3
# text = The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a little of that, and by her manner making it very plain that she ate the simple food only to be polite.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Town	Town	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	Mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	sparingly	sparingly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	nibbling	nibble	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	nmod	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	by	by	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	manner	manner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
23	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	_
25	very	very	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	plain	plain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	xcomp	_	_
27	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
28	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
29	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	advcl	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
31	simple	simple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obj	_	_
33	only	only	ADV	RB	_	36	advmod	_	_
34	to	to	PART	TO	_	36	mark	_	_
35	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	36	cop	_	_
36	polite	polite	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **eat** | past | the Town Mouse |  |  |  |  | sparingly *property* | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **nibble** | gerund | the Town Mouse *not said here* | a little of this |  |  |  |  | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent little=Patient |
| 3 | **make** | gerund | the Town Mouse *not said here* | manner |  |  |  | by Mouse's manner; plain *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset it=Product |
| 4 | **eat** | past | Mouse | the simple food |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent food=Patient |
| 5 | **is** | to-infinitive | Mouse *not said here* |  |  |  |  | polite *property* | 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.

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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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