---
title: One day they were sitting by the fire, watching some chestnuts roast… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: One day they were sitting by the fire, watching some chestnuts roasting on the hearth. Who acts: Cat, chestnuts. 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 4

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One day they were sitting by the fire, watching some chestnuts roasting on the hearth.

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**Who acts:** Cat, chestnuts · **What happens:** sit, watch, roast · **To what, where:** chestnuts

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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, chestnuts), 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:pg19994:63:4
# text = One day they were sitting by the fire, watching some chestnuts roasting on the hearth.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
11	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	12	det	_	_
12	chestnuts	chestnut	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
13	roasting	roast	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	acl	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	hearth	hearth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | Cat |  |  |  | day | by the fire | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent by fire=Location |
| 2 | **watch** | gerund | Cat *not said here* | some chestnuts |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chestnut=Theme |
| 3 | **roast** | gerund | some chestnuts *not said here* |  |  |  |  | on the hearth | vn cooking-45.3 «NP V PP.result PP.instrument»: agent=Patient on hearth=Instrument |

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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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