---
title: Before he composed himself to rest, he flapped his wings three times… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: Before he composed himself to rest, he flapped his wings three times and crowed loudly. 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 2

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Before he composed himself to rest, he flapped his wings three times and crowed loudly.

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**Who acts:** Cock · **What happens:** compose, rest, flap, crow · **To what, where:** Cock, wings

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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:pg19994:70:2
# text = Before he composed himself to rest, he flapped his wings three times and crowed loudly.
1	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	composed	compose	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	3	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	rest	rest	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	flapped	flap	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
12	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl:unmarked	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	crowed	crow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
16	loudly	loudly	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **compose** | past | Cock | Cock |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **rest** | to-infinitive | Cock *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **flap** | past | Cock | Cock's wings |  |  | time |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wing=Patient |
| 4 | **crow** | past | Cock *not said here* |  |  |  |  | loudly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=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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