---
title: "If you had kept your mouth shut you might have frightened me, too. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: "If you had kept your mouth shut you might have frightened me, too. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass in the Lion's Skin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Ass in the Lion's Skin, sentence 7

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"If you had kept your mouth shut you might have frightened me, too.

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**What happens:** keep, frighten · **To what, where:** you

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass in the Lion's Skin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg19994:147:7
# text = "If you had kept your mouth shut you might have frightened me, too.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	kept	keep	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	advcl	_	_
6	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	shut	shut	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	xcomp	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	aux	_	_
12	frightened	frighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	too	too	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past · perfect · passive |  | you |  |  |  | shut *property* | vn sustain-55.6-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Theme mouth=Attribute |
| 2 | **frighten** *in a quote* | might · perfect · passive |  | you |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Experiencer i=Result |

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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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