---
title: "What foolishness," cried one, "to walk when they might as well ride. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: "What foolishness," cried one, "to walk when they might as well ride. Who acts: foolishness, Miller. 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 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"What foolishness," cried one, "to walk when they might as well ride.

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**Who acts:** foolishness, Miller · **What happens:** foolishness, cry, walk, ride · **To what, where:** one · **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 (foolishness, Miller), 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:pg19994:134:4
# text = "What foolishness," cried one, "to walk when they might as well ride.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	nsubj	_	_
3	foolishness	foolishness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	walk	walk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
12	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	17	mark	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
14	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
15	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	17	cc	_	_
16	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	15	fixed	_	_
17	ride	ride	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **foolishness** *in a quote* |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | foolishness | one |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Topic |
| 3 | **walk** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | foolishness *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **ride** *in a quote* | might | Miller |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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