---
title: But he spoke in an absent way, and stretching up on tiptoes, seemed… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: But he spoke in an absent way, and stretching up on tiptoes, seemed to be looking at something afar off. Who acts: Cock. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cock and the Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Cock and the Fox, sentence 13

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But he spoke in an absent way, and stretching up on tiptoes, seemed to be looking at something afar off.

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**Who acts:** Cock · **What happens:** speak, stretch up, seem, look · **To what, where:** absent way, tiptoes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cock 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 (Cock), 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:pg19994:70:13
# text = But he spoke in an absent way, and stretching up on tiptoes, seemed to be looking at something afar off.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	absent	absent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
10	stretching	stretch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
11	up	up	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	tiptoes	tiptoe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
15	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	aux	_	_
18	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
19	at	at	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	18	obl	_	_
21	afar	afar	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
22	off	off	ADP	RP	_	21	compound:prt	_	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 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Cock |  |  | a absent way |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **stretch up** | gerund |  |  |  | tiptoes |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **seem** | past | Cock *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **look** | to-infinitive · progressive | Cock *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at something | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at something=Theme |

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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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