---
title: The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. Who acts: Lion, Mouse. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Lion and the Mouse, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/19/6/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Aesop for Children](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/) / [The Lion and the Mouse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/19/) / 6

# The Aesop for Children, The Lion and the Mouse, sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Lion, Mouse · **What happens:** be, think, help · **To what, where:** Lion · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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, Mouse), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg19994:19:6
# text = The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Lion	Lion	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	much	much	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	amused	amused	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	csubj	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	13	advmod	_	_
13	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the Lion |  |  |  |  | amused *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **help** | could | a Mouse |  | Lion |  | ever |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Beneficiary |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/19/5/)
- next →: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/19/7/)
- ↑ back to [The Lion and the Mouse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/19/)