---
title: If it were not for those Dogs who are always stirring up trouble, I… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: If it were not for those Dogs who are always stirring up trouble, I am sure we should get along beautifully. Who acts: hostility, Dogs, we. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolves and the Sheep, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/145/5/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Aesop for Children](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/) / [The Wolves and the Sheep](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/145/) / 5

# The Aesop for Children, The Wolves and the Sheep, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
If it were not for those Dogs who are always stirring up trouble, I am sure we should get along beautifully.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** hostility, Dogs, we · **What happens:** not be, stir up, be, get along · **To what, where:** trouble

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolves and the Sheep. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hostility, Dogs, we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg19994:145:5
# text = If it were not for those Dogs who are always stirring up trouble, I am sure we should get along beautifully.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
7	Dogs	dog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
8	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
9	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	11	advmod	_	_
11	stirring	stir	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	acl:relcl	_	_
12	up	up	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	trouble	trouble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
18	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	ccomp	_	_
21	along	along	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
22	beautifully	beautifully	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | hostility |  |  |  |  | for that Dogs | tree rules |
| 2 | **stir up** | present · progressive | that Dogs | trouble |  |  |  | always *property* | vn engender-27.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Precondition trouble=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | present | that Dogs |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **get along** | should | we |  |  |  |  | along, beautifully *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/145/4/)
- next →: [sentence 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/145/6/)
- ↑ back to [The Wolves and the Sheep](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/145/)