---
title: _Do not tell others how to act unless you can set a good example. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: _Do not tell others how to act unless you can set a good example. Who acts: _, others, you. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Young Crab and His Mother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Young Crab and His Mother, sentence 7

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\_Do not tell others how to act unless you can set a good example.

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**Who acts:** \_, others, you · **What happens:** not tell, act, set · **To what, where:** others, good example · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Young Crab and His Mother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (\_, others, you), 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:pg19994:5:7
# text = _Do not tell others how to act unless you can set a good example.
1	_	_	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	Do	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
6	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	act	act	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
9	unless	unless	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	set	set	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	example	example	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | infinitive | \_ | others |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent other=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **act** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | others *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **set** *a condition, not said to happen* | can | you | a good example |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient example=Result |

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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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