---
title: If I should bring you a drink, it would only serve to wash me down y… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: If I should bring you a drink, it would only serve to wash me down your throat. Who acts: I, drink. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Sheep, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Wolf and the Sheep, sentence 7

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If I should bring you a drink, it would only serve to wash me down your throat.

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**Who acts:** I, drink · **What happens:** bring, serve, wash down · **To what, where:** drink, you, throat, me

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Sheep. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, drink), 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:pg19994:48:7
# text = If I should bring you a drink, it would only serve to wash me down your throat.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	drink	drink	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	only	only	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	serve	serve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	wash	wash	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	down	down	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
17	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	throat	throat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bring** *a condition, not said to happen* | should | I | a drink | you |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP NP»: agent=Agent you=Destination drink=Theme |
| 2 | **serve** | would | drink |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **wash down** | to-infinitive | drink *not said here* | your throat | me |  |  |  | vn preparing-26.3-2 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: agent=Agent i=Beneficiary throat=Patient |

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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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