---
title: An Ass was feeding in a pasture near a wood when he saw a Wolf lurki… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: An Ass was feeding in a pasture near a wood when he saw a Wolf lurking in the shadows along the hedge. Who acts: Ass, Wolf. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Ass, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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

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An Ass was feeding in a pasture near a wood when he saw a Wolf lurking in the shadows along the hedge.

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**Who acts:** Ass, Wolf · **What happens:** feed, see, lurk · **To what, where:** pasture, Wolf, shadows

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Ass. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ass, Wolf), 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:pg19994:62:1
# text = An Ass was feeding in a pasture near a wood when he saw a Wolf lurking in the shadows along the hedge.
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Ass	ass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	feeding	feed	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	pasture	pasture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	near	near	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
11	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Wolf	Wolf	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	lurking	lurk	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	xcomp	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	shadows	shadow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	_
20	along	along	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	hedge	hedge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **feed** | past · progressive | a Ass |  |  | a pasture |  | near a wood | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent in pasture=Location |
| 2 | **see** | past | Ass | a Wolf |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **lurk** | gerund | a Wolf *not said here* |  |  | the shadows |  | along the hedge | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in shadow=Location |

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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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