---
title: Clinging to the straw like a shipwrecked sailor to a broken spar, th… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: Clinging to the straw like a shipwrecked sailor to a broken spar, the Ant floated safely to shore. Who acts: Ant. 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 3

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Clinging to the straw like a shipwrecked sailor to a broken spar, the Ant floated safely to shore.

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**Who acts:** Ant · **What happens:** cling, shipwreck, break, float · **To what, where:** shore

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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), 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:pg19994:135:3
# text = Clinging to the straw like a shipwrecked sailor to a broken spar, the Ant floated safely to shore.
1	Clinging	cling	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
2	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	straw	straw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	_
5	like	like	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	shipwrecked	shipwreck	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	amod	_	_
8	sailor	sailor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	broken	break	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	amod	_	_
12	spar	spar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Ant	Ant	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	floated	float	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	safely	safely	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	shore	shore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cling** | gerund | the Ant *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to the straw; like a shipwrecked sailor to a broken spar | vn cling-22.5 «NP V PP.co-theme»: agent=Theme to straw=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **shipwreck** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **break** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **float** | past | the Ant |  |  | shore |  | safely *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme to shore=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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