---
title: The Miller felt a bit vexed, but to be agreeable he told the Boy to… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Miller felt a bit vexed, but to be agreeable he told the Boy to climb up behind him. Who acts: Miller, boy. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Miller, His Son, and the Ass, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Miller, His Son, and the Ass, sentence 15

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The Miller felt a bit vexed, but to be agreeable he told the Boy to climb up behind him.

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**Who acts:** Miller, boy · **What happens:** feel, vex, be, tell, climb up · **To what, where:** bit, Boy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Miller, His Son, and the Ass. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Miller, boy), 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:pg19994:134:15
# text = The Miller felt a bit vexed, but to be agreeable he told the Boy to climb up behind him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Miller	Miller	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	vexed	vex	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	cop	_	_
11	agreeable	agreeable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	parataxis	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Boy	Boy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	iobj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	climb	climb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
18	up	up	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	_
19	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **feel** | past | the Miller | a bit |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bit=Theme |
| 2 | **vex** | participle |  | a bit *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is** | to-infinitive | the Miller *not said here* |  |  |  |  | agreeable *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | boy |  | the Boy |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent boy=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 5 | **climb up** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  | behind boy | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme behind he=Trajectory |

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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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