---
title: In a spell of dry weather, when the Birds could find very little to… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: In a spell of dry weather, when the Birds could find very little to drink, a thirsty Crow found a pitcher with a little water in it. Who acts: Birds, thirsty Crow. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Crow and the Pitcher, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Crow and the Pitcher, sentence 1

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In a spell of dry weather, when the Birds could find very little to drink, a thirsty Crow found a pitcher with a little water in it.

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**Who acts:** Birds, thirsty Crow · **What happens:** find, drink, spell · **To what, where:** little, pitcher, spell, dry weather

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Crow and the Pitcher. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Birds, thirsty Crow), 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:pg19994:33:1
# text = In a spell of dry weather, when the Birds could find very little to drink, a thirsty Crow found a pitcher with a little water in it.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	spell	spell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	weather	weather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl:relcl	_	_
13	very	very	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	drink	drink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	thirsty	thirsty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	Crow	crow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	pitcher	pitcher	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
24	with	with	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
26	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	_
28	in	in	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** | could | the Birds | little |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent little=Topic |
| 2 | **drink** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **find** | past | a thirsty Crow | a pitcher |  | a spell of dry weather |  | with a little water in water | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pitcher=Topic |
| 4 | **spell** |  |  | dry weather |  |  |  |  | nom spell «state transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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.

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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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