---
title: What they seemed to think of more than anything else was to get some… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: What they seemed to think of more than anything else was to get something to eat, and it did not matter much to them how they got it. Who acts: Cat, it. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Monkey and the Cat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Monkey and the Cat, sentence 3

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What they seemed to think of more than anything else was to get something to eat, and it did not matter much to them how they got it.

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**Who acts:** Cat, it · **What happens:** seem, think, get, eat, not matter · **To what, where:** something, Cat, mischief

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Monkey and the Cat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Cat, it), 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:pg19994:63:3
# text = What they seemed to think of more than anything else was to get something to eat, and it did not matter much to them how they got it.
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	obj	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp|ExtPos=ADV	9	advmod	_	_
8	than	than	ADP	IN	_	7	fixed	_	_
9	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	5	obl	_	_
10	else	else	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
14	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	13	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	matter	matter	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
23	much	much	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
24	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obl	_	_
26	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	28	advmod	_	_
27	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	advcl	_	_
29	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | Cat |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | Cat *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of anything | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **get** | to-infinitive | Cat *not said here* | something |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer something=Stimulus |
| 4 | **eat** | to-infinitive | Cat *not said here* | something *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **not** **matter** | past · do-support | it |  | Cat |  |  |  | vn matter-91 «NP V PP.experiencer»: agent=Stimulus to they=Experiencer |
| 6 | **get** | past | Cat | mischief |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

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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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