---
title: But as for me, I would choose a single grain of barleycorn before al… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: But as for me, I would choose a single grain of barleycorn before all the jewels in the world." Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cock and the Jewel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Cock and the Jewel, sentence 4

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But as for me, I would choose a single grain of barleycorn before all the jewels in the world."

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** choose · **To what, where:** single grain

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cock and the Jewel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg19994:41:4
# text = But as for me, I would choose a single grain of barleycorn before all the jewels in the world."
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	as	as	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	4	case	_	_
3	for	for	ADP	IN	_	2	fixed	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	choose	choose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	grain	grain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	barleycorn	barleycorn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
14	before	before	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	17	det:predet	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	jewels	jewel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **choose** | would | I | a single grain of barleycorn |  |  | before all jewels in the world | as me | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent grain=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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