---
title: "How could I have done so?" pleaded the Lamb. " — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: "How could I have done so?" pleaded the Lamb. " Who acts: Lamb. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Lamb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Wolf and the Lamb, sentence 12

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"How could I have done so?" pleaded the Lamb. "

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**Who acts:** Lamb · **What happens:** do, plead · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Lamb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lamb), 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:pg19994:47:12
# text = "How could I have done so?" pleaded the Lamb. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux	_	_
6	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
7	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
10	pleaded	plead	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Lamb	Lamb	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	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* | could · perfect | the Lamb *= lamb* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **plead** *speech: request* | past | the Lamb |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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