---
title: "Why are you doing that?" asked the Fox at last with a grin. " — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: "Why are you doing that?" asked the Fox at last with a grin. " Who acts: you, Fox. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wild Boar and the Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Wild Boar and the Fox, sentence 5

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"Why are you doing that?" asked the Fox at last with a grin. "

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**Who acts:** you, Fox · **What happens:** do, ask · **To what, where:** that · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wild Boar and the Fox. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Fox), 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:pg19994:43:5
# text = "Why are you doing that?" asked the Fox at last with a grin. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	doing	do	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	ccomp	_	_
6	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	ccomp	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	grin	grin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | present · progressive | you | that |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the Fox |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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