---
title: Still he kept up a flow of sarcastic talk, just to exercise his wits… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: Still he kept up a flow of sarcastic talk, just to exercise his wits and to have the fun of disputing. Who acts: Leopard, sarcastic talk. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Leopard, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Fox and the Leopard, sentence 4

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Still he kept up a flow of sarcastic talk, just to exercise his wits and to have the fun of disputing.

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**Who acts:** Leopard, sarcastic talk · **What happens:** keep up, exercise, have, flow · **To what, where:** flow, wits, fun

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Leopard. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Leopard, sarcastic talk), 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:pg19994:68:4
# text = Still he kept up a flow of sarcastic talk, just to exercise his wits and to have the fun of disputing.
1	Still	still	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	up	up	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	flow	flow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	sarcastic	sarcastic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	talk	talk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	just	just	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	exercise	exercise	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	wits	wit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	have	have	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	fun	fun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	disputing	disputing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep up** | past | Leopard | a flow of sarcastic talk |  |  | still |  | vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent flow=Theme |
| 2 | **exercise** | to-infinitive |  | Leopard's wits |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wit=Patient |
| 3 | **have** | to-infinitive |  | the fun of disputing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fun=Patient |
| 4 | **flow** |  | sarcastic talk |  |  |  |  |  | nom flow «event intransitive»: of=agent |

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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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