---
title: The Stork could easily get at the food with his long bill, but all t… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Stork could easily get at the food with his long bill, but all the Fox could do was to lick the outside of the jar, and sniff at the delicious odor. Who acts: Stork, Fox. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Stork, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/50/12/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Aesop for Children](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/) / [The Fox and the Stork](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/50/) / 12

# The Aesop for Children, The Fox and the Stork, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Stork could easily get at the food with his long bill, but all the Fox could do was to lick the outside of the jar, and sniff at the delicious odor.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Stork, Fox · **What happens:** get, do, be, lick, sniff, bill · **To what, where:** food, outside

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Stork. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Stork, Fox), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg19994:50:12
# text = The Stork could easily get at the food with his long bill, but all the Fox could do was to lick the outside of the jar, and sniff at the delicious odor.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Stork	stork	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	easily	easily	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	bill	bill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	17	det:predet	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
20	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	lick	lick	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	advcl	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	outside	outside	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	jar	jar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
30	sniff	sniff	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
31	at	at	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
32	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
33	delicious	delicious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	_
34	odor	odor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | could | the Stork |  |  | the food |  | with Fox's long bill; easily *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **do** | could | all Fox |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **be** | past | all Fox *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **lick** | to-infinitive | all Fox *not said here* | the outside of the jar |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent outside=Source |
| 5 | **sniff** | present | the Stork *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at the delicious odor | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at odor=Theme |
| 6 | **bill** |  | Fox |  |  |  |  |  | nom bill «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/50/11/)
- next →: [sentence 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/50/13/)
- ↑ back to [The Fox and the Stork](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/50/)