---
title: "Come close to me," said the Cat, "I am very deaf. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: "Come close to me," said the Cat, "I am very deaf. Who acts: Cat. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Rabbit, the Weasel, and the Cat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Rabbit, the Weasel, and the Cat, sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Come close to me," said the Cat, "I am very deaf.

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**Who acts:** Cat · **What happens:** come, say, be · **To what, where:** Cat · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Rabbit, the Weasel, 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), 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:pg19994:66:8
# text = "Come close to me," said the Cat, "I am very deaf.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
3	close	close	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	2	advmod	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	very	very	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	deaf	deaf	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | the Cat *= cat* |  |  | close *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to i=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Cat |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | the Cat *= cat* |  |  |  |  | deaf *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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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