---
title: _Be sure you can better your condition before you seek to change. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: _Be sure you can better your condition before you seek to change. Who acts: you, your. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Frogs Who Wished For a King, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Frogs Who Wished For a King, sentence 15

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\_Be sure you can better your condition before you seek to change.

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**Who acts:** you, your · **What happens:** be, better, seek, change, condition · **To what, where:** condition

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Frogs Who Wished For a King. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, your), 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:pg19994:27:15
# text = _Be sure you can better your condition before you seek to change.
1	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	cop	_	_
3	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	better	better	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
7	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	condition	condition	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	seek	seek	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	change	change	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **better** | can | you | your condition |  |  |  |  | vn exceed-90 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot condition=Theme |
| 3 | **seek** | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **change** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **condition** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom condition «state transitive»: poss=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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