---
title: So he decided not to wait and made off as fast as his legs could car… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: So he decided not to wait and made off as fast as his legs could carry him. Who acts: porter, legs. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Lean Dog, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Wolf and the Lean Dog, sentence 18

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So he decided not to wait and made off as fast as his legs could carry him.

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**Who acts:** porter, legs · **What happens:** decide, not wait, make off, carry · **To what, where:** porter

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Lean Dog. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (porter, legs), 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:pg19994:56:18
# text = So he decided not to wait and made off as fast as his legs could carry him.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	decided	decide	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	wait	wait	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	_
9	off	off	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	as	as	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **decide** | past | porter |  |  |  |  |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **wait** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | porter *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **make off** | participle | porter *not said here* |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |
| 4 | **carry** | could | porter's legs | porter |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |

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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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