---
title: All the Mice were much surprised that they had not thought of such a… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: All the Mice were much surprised that they had not thought of such a plan before. Who acts: Mice. 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 9

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All the Mice were much surprised that they had not thought of such a plan before.

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**Who acts:** Mice · **What happens:** be, not think · **To what, where:** Mice

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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: who acts (Mice), 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:pg19994:8:9
# text = All the Mice were much surprised that they had not thought of such a plan before.
1	All	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	3	det:predet	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	much	much	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	surprised	surprised	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	thought	think	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	advcl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	15	det:predet	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	plan	plan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	before	before	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | all Mice |  |  |  |  | surprised *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **think** *speech: other* | past · perfect · passive |  | Mice *= mouse* |  |  |  | of such plan | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: subject=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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