---
title: So he picked up some castoff feathers of the Peacocks and stuck them… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: So he picked up some castoff feathers of the Peacocks and stuck them among his own black plumes. Who acts: Jackdaw. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Vain Jackdaw and His Borrowed Feathers, 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/pg19994/60/5/)

<!-- 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 Vain Jackdaw and His Borrowed Feat…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/60/) / 5

# The Aesop for Children, The Vain Jackdaw and His Borrowed Feathers, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So he picked up some castoff feathers of the Peacocks and stuck them among his own black plumes.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Jackdaw · **What happens:** pick up, stick · **To what, where:** castoff feathers, feathers, own black plumes

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Vain Jackdaw and His Borrowed Feathers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Jackdaw), 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:pg19994:60:5
# text = So he picked up some castoff feathers of the Peacocks and stuck them among his own black plumes.
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	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	up	up	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	7	det	_	_
6	castoff	castoff	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Peacocks	Peacock	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	stuck	stick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	among	among	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
16	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	plumes	plume	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pick up** | past | Jackdaw | some castoff feathers of the Peacocks |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent feather=Topic |
| 2 | **stick** | past | Jackdaw *not said here* | feathers *= feather* |  | Jackdaw's own black plumes |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent they=Theme among plume=Destination |

<!-- .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 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/60/4/)
- next →: [sentence 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/60/6/)
- ↑ back to [The Vain Jackdaw and His Borrowed Feathers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/60/)