---
title: A hungry Wolf spied a Goat browsing at the top of a steep cliff wher… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: A hungry Wolf spied a Goat browsing at the top of a steep cliff where he could not possibly get at her. Who acts: hungry Wolf, Goat, Wolf. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Goat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Wolf and the Goat, sentence 1

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A hungry Wolf spied a Goat browsing at the top of a steep cliff where he could not possibly get at her.

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**Who acts:** hungry Wolf, Goat, Wolf · **What happens:** spy, browse, not get · **To what, where:** Goat, top

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Goat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hungry Wolf, Goat, Wolf), 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:pg19994:72:1
# text = A hungry Wolf spied a Goat browsing at the top of a steep cliff where he could not possibly get at her.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Wolf	Wolf	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	spied	spy	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	Goat	goat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	browsing	browse	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	steep	steep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	cliff	cliff	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
15	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	20	advmod	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
19	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl:relcl	_	_
21	at	at	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spy** | past | a hungry Wolf | a Goat |  |  |  |  | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer goat=Stimulus |
| 2 | **browse** | gerund | a Goat *not said here* |  |  | the top of a steep cliff |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **get** | could | Wolf |  |  |  |  | at Goat; possibly *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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