---
title: I dislike causing sorrow to anybody, and I am sure I can soon gnaw t… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: I dislike causing sorrow to anybody, and I am sure I can soon gnaw this string to pieces." Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cock and the Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Cock and the Fox, sentence 8

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I dislike causing sorrow to anybody, and I am sure I can soon gnaw this string to pieces."

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** dislike, cause, be, gnaw · **To what, where:** sorrow, string

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cock and the Fox. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg19994:146:8
# text = I dislike causing sorrow to anybody, and I am sure I can soon gnaw this string to pieces."
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	dislike	dislike	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	causing	cause	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	xcomp	_	_
4	sorrow	sorrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	anybody	anybody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
11	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	15	advmod	_	_
15	gnaw	gnaw	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
16	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	det	_	_
17	string	string	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dislike** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **cause** | gerund | I *not said here* | sorrow |  |  |  | to anybody | vn engender-27.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Precondition sorrow=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **gnaw** | can | I | this string |  |  |  | to pieces; soon *property* | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent string=Patient |

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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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