---
title: They made several attempts to steal it from him. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: They made several attempts to steal it from him. Who acts: things. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Dog and His Master's Dinner, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/59/4/)

<!-- 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 Dog and His Master's Dinner](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/59/) / 4

# The Aesop for Children, The Dog and His Master's Dinner, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They made several attempts to steal it from him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** things · **What happens:** make, steal · **To what, where:** several attempts, basket

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Dog and His Master's Dinner. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (things), 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:pg19994:59:4
# text = They made several attempts to steal it from him.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	attempts	attempt	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	steal	steal	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past | things *= thing* | several attempts |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset attempt=Product |
| 2 | **steal** | to-infinitive | things *= thing* *not said here* | basket |  |  |  | from smell | vn steal-10.5-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent it=Theme from he=Source |

<!-- .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 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/59/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/59/5/)
- ↑ back to [The Dog and His Master's Dinner](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/59/)