---
title: So they held a council and decided that the very best thing to do wa… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: So they held a council and decided that the very best thing to do was to drink up the river. Who acts: Dogs, best thing. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Dogs and the Hides, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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

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So they held a council and decided that the very best thing to do was to drink up the river.

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**Who acts:** Dogs, best thing · **What happens:** hold, decide, do, be · **To what, where:** council · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Dogs and the Hides. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dogs, best thing), 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:pg19994:65:3
# text = So they held a council and decided that the very best thing to do was to drink up the river.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	council	council	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	decided	decide	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	very	very	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	12	amod	_	_
12	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	acl	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	drink	drink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
18	up	up	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | past | Dogs *= dog* | a council |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent council=Theme |
| 2 | **decide** | past | Dogs *= dog* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** | to-infinitive | the best thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *not said to happen* | past | the best thing |  |  |  |  | drink *property* | 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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