---
title: The Fisherman was about to put it in his basket when the little Fish… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Fisherman was about to put it in his basket when the little Fish said: Who acts: Fisherman, little Fish. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fisherman and the Little Fish, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Fisherman and the Little Fish, sentence 2

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The Fisherman was about to put it in his basket when the little Fish said:

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**Who acts:** Fisherman, little Fish · **What happens:** be, put, say · **To what, where:** luck, basket · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fisherman and the Little Fish. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fisherman, little Fish), 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:pg19994:148:2
# text = The Fisherman was about to put it in his basket when the little Fish said:
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Fisherman	Fisherman	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	about	about	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	basket	basket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	Fish	Fish	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the Fisherman |  |  |  |  | about *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **put** | to-infinitive | the Fisherman *not said here* | luck |  | Fisherman's basket |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme in basket=Destination |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the little Fish |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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