---
title: A Traveler had hired an Ass to carry him to a distant part of the co… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: A Traveler had hired an Ass to carry him to a distant part of the country. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass and Its Shadow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Ass and Its Shadow, sentence 1

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A Traveler had hired an Ass to carry him to a distant part of the country.

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**What happens:** hire, carry · **To what, where:** Traveler, him, distant part

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass and Its Shadow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg19994:133:1
# text = A Traveler had hired an Ass to carry him to a distant part of the country.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Traveler	traveler	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	hired	hire	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	Ass	ass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	distant	distant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hire** | past · perfect · passive |  | a Traveler |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: subject=Beneficiary ass=Theme |
| 2 | **carry** | to-infinitive |  | him *= he* |  | a distant part of the country |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent he=Theme to part=Destination |

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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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