---
title: A very young Fox, who had never before seen a Lion, happened to meet… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: A very young Fox, who had never before seen a Lion, happened to meet one in the forest. Who acts: young Fox. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Lion, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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

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A very young Fox, who had never before seen a Lion, happened to meet one in the forest.

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**Who acts:** young Fox · **What happens:** see, happen, meet · **To what, where:** Lion, one, forest

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Lion. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (young Fox), 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:pg19994:57:1
# text = A very young Fox, who had never before seen a Lion, happened to meet one in the forest.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	very	very	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
7	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
8	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	before	before	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	acl:relcl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Lion	Lion	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
14	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	meet	meet	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	obj	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past · perfect | a young Fox | a Lion |  |  |  | before *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer lion=Stimulus |
| 2 | **happen** | past | a young Fox |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **meet** | to-infinitive | a young Fox *not said here* | one |  | the forest |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Co-Agent |

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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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