---
title: A Wolf had stolen a Lamb and was carrying it off to his lair to eat… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: A Wolf had stolen a Lamb and was carrying it off to his lair to eat it. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Lion, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Wolf and the Lion, sentence 1

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A Wolf had stolen a Lamb and was carrying it off to his lair to eat it.

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**What happens:** steal, carry off, eat · **To what, where:** Wolf, Lamb, lair

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Lion. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg19994:52:1
# text = A Wolf had stolen a Lamb and was carrying it off to his lair to eat it.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	stolen	steal	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	Lamb	lamb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	carrying	carry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	off	off	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	lair	lair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **steal** | past · perfect · passive |  | a Wolf |  |  |  |  | vn steal-10.5-1 «NP V NP NP»: subject=Beneficiary lamb=Theme |
| 2 | **carry off** | past · progressive |  | Lamb |  | his lair |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme to lair=Destination |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive |  | Lamb |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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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