---
title: A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. Who acts: Lion, great head. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Lion and the Mouse, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Lion and the Mouse, sentence 1

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A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws.

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**Who acts:** Lion, great head · **What happens:** lie, rest · **To what, where:** forest, paws

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Lion and the Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lion, great head), 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:pg19994:19:1
# text = A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	appos	_	_
12	resting	rest	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	paws	paw	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | a Lion |  |  | the forest |  | asleep *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in forest=Location |
| 2 | **rest** | gerund | Lion's great head *not said here* |  |  | Lion's paws |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on paw=Location |

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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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