---
title: They had crossed this river many times before without accident, but… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: They had crossed this river many times before without accident, but this time the Ass slipped and fell when halfway over. Who acts: They, time. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass and the Load of Salt, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Ass and the Load of Salt, sentence 2

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They had crossed this river many times before without accident, but this time the Ass slipped and fell when halfway over.

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**Who acts:** They, time · **What happens:** cross, slip, fall · **To what, where:** river

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass and the Load of Salt. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (They, time), 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:pg19994:38:2
# text = They had crossed this river many times before without accident, but this time the Ass slipped and fell when halfway over.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	crossed	cross	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl:unmarked	_	_
8	before	before	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
9	without	without	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	accident	accident	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	det	_	_
14	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Ass	Ass	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	_
17	slipped	slip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	_
20	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	22	mark	_	_
21	halfway	halfway	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	over	over	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cross** | past · perfect | They | this river |  |  | time | without accident; before *property* | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent river=Patient |
| 2 | **slip** | past | this time |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **fall** | past | this time *not said here* |  |  |  |  | over *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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