---
title: _The flatterer lives at the expense of those who will listen to him. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: _The flatterer lives at the expense of those who will listen to him. Who acts: flatterer. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Crow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Fox and the Crow, sentence 20

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\_The flatterer lives at the expense of those who will listen to him.

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**Who acts:** flatterer · **What happens:** live, listen · **To what, where:** expense, flatterer

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Crow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flatterer), 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:pg19994:132:20
# text = _The flatterer lives at the expense of those who will listen to him.
1	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	flatterer	flatterer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	lives	live	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	expense	expense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	those	that	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	7	nmod	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
11	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl:relcl	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | present | the flatterer |  |  | the expense of those |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at expense=Location |
| 2 | **listen** | future |  |  | flatterer |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to he=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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