---
title: The Ant struggled in vain to reach the bank, and in pity, the Dove d… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Ant struggled in vain to reach the bank, and in pity, the Dove dropped a blade of straw close beside it. Who acts: Ant, Dove. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ant and the Dove, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Ant and the Dove, sentence 2

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The Ant struggled in vain to reach the bank, and in pity, the Dove dropped a blade of straw close beside it.

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**Who acts:** Ant, Dove · **What happens:** struggle, reach, drop · **To what, where:** vain, bank, blade, pity

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ant and the Dove. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ant, Dove), 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:pg19994:135:2
# text = The Ant struggled in vain to reach the bank, and in pity, the Dove dropped a blade of straw close beside it.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Ant	Ant	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	struggled	struggle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	obl	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	bank	bank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	pity	pity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Dove	Dove	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	dropped	drop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	blade	blade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	straw	straw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	_
22	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	_
23	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **struggle** | past | the Ant |  |  | vain |  |  | vn battle-36.4 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **reach** | to-infinitive | the Ant *not said here* | the bank |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent bank=Theme |
| 3 | **drop** | past | the Dove | a blade of straw |  | pity |  | close *property* | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent blade=Theme in pity=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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