---
title: "If that Lion had been alive," he said, "it would have been a very d… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: "If that Lion had been alive," he said, "it would have been a very different story. Who acts: Lion, Fox. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Dogs and the Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Dogs and the Fox, sentence 3

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"If that Lion had been alive," he said, "it would have been a very different story.

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**Who acts:** Lion, Fox · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** different story · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Dogs and the Fox. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lion, Fox), 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:pg19994:64:3
# text = "If that Lion had been alive," he said, "it would have been a very different story.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
3	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	Lion	Lion	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	cop	_	_
7	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
15	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
16	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux	_	_
17	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	21	cop	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
19	very	very	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	different	different	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past · perfect | that Lion |  |  |  |  | alive *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Lion |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | would · perfect | Fox | a different story |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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