---
title: Instead he seemed to be helping the Shepherd take care of the Sheep. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: Instead he seemed to be helping the Shepherd take care of the Sheep. Who acts: Wolf, Shepherd. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Shepherd, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Wolf and the Shepherd, sentence 3

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Instead he seemed to be helping the Shepherd take care of the Sheep.

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**Who acts:** Wolf, Shepherd · **What happens:** seem, help, take · **To what, where:** Shepherd, care

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf and the Shepherd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Wolf, Shepherd), 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:pg19994:77:3
# text = Instead he seemed to be helping the Shepherd take care of the Sheep.
1	Instead	instead	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux	_	_
6	helping	help	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	xcomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Shepherd	shepherd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
10	care	care	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | Wolf |  |  |  |  | instead *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 2 | **help** | to-infinitive · progressive | Wolf *not said here* | the Shepherd |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent shepherd=Beneficiary clause=Theme |
| 3 | **take** | infinitive | the Shepherd *not said here* | care |  |  |  | of the Sheep | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent care=Theme of sheep=Initial\_Location |

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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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