---
title: The Mice once called a meeting to decide on a plan to free themselve… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Mice once called a meeting to decide on a plan to free themselves of their enemy, the Cat. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Belling the Cat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, Belling the Cat, sentence 1

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The Mice once called a meeting to decide on a plan to free themselves of their enemy, the Cat.

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**What happens:** call, decide · **To what, where:** Mice · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Belling the Cat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg19994:8:1
# text = The Mice once called a meeting to decide on a plan to free themselves of their enemy, the Cat.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	4	advmod	_	_
4	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	meeting	meeting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	xcomp	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	decide	decide	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	plan	plan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	free	free	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	acl	_	_
14	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	13	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	enemy	enemy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	Cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** | participle · passive |  | the Mice |  |  |  | once *property* | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 2 | **decide** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | on a plan | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V PP.theme S»: agent=Agent on plan=Topic |

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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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