---
title: While the Ass cropped a fresh bit of greens, the Fox would devour a… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: While the Ass cropped a fresh bit of greens, the Fox would devour a chicken from the neighboring farmyard or a bit of cheese filched from the dairy. Who acts: Ass, Fox. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass, the Fox, and the Lion, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of eve
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Ass, the Fox, and the Lion, sentence 2

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While the Ass cropped a fresh bit of greens, the Fox would devour a chicken from the neighboring farmyard or a bit of cheese filched from the dairy.

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**Who acts:** Ass, Fox · **What happens:** crop, devour, neighbor, filch · **To what, where:** fresh bit, chicken, neighboring farmyard, cheese, dairy

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass, the Fox, and the Lion. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ass, 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:pg19994:44:2
# text = While the Ass cropped a fresh bit of greens, the Fox would devour a chicken from the neighboring farmyard or a bit of cheese filched from the dairy.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Ass	Ass	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	cropped	crop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	fresh	fresh	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	greens	green	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	devour	devour	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	chicken	chicken	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	from	from	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	neighboring	neighbor	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	20	amod	_	_
20	farmyard	farmyard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
21	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	cheese	cheese	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	_
26	filched	filch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	25	acl	_	_
27	from	from	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	dairy	dairy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **crop** | past | the Ass | a fresh bit of greens |  |  |  |  | vn carve-21.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bit=Patient |
| 2 | **devour** | would | the Fox | a chicken |  | the neighboring farmyard or a bit of cheese |  |  | vn devour-39.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chicken=Patient |
| 3 | **neighbor** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **filch** | participle |  | cheese *not said here* |  | the dairy |  |  | vn steal-10.5 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent from dairy=Source |

<!-- .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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