---
title: They had to use all their strength to pull the wagon, but they did n… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: They had to use all their strength to pull the wagon, but they did not complain. Who acts: Oxen. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Oxen and the Wheels, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Oxen and the Wheels, sentence 2

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They had to use all their strength to pull the wagon, but they did not complain.

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**Who acts:** Oxen · **What happens:** have, use, pull, not complain · **To what, where:** strength, wagon

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Oxen and the Wheels. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Oxen), 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:pg19994:18:2
# text = They had to use all their strength to pull the wagon, but they did not complain.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	use	use	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	7	det:predet	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	strength	strength	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	pull	pull	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	wagon	wagon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	complain	complain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Oxen *= ox* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **use** | to-infinitive | Oxen *= ox* *not said here* | Oxen's strength |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent strength=Patient |
| 3 | **pull** | to-infinitive | Oxen *= ox* *not said here* | the wagon |  |  |  |  | vn push-12-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wagon=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **complain** *speech: other* | past · do-support | Oxen *= ox* |  |  |  |  |  | vn complain-37.8 «NP V»: 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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