---
title: Of course, they were all hungry, and helped themselves freely to the… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: Of course, they were all hungry, and helped themselves freely to the Stag's food; and as you would expect, the Stag soon starved to death. Who acts: Animals, you, Stag. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Sick Stag, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Sick Stag, sentence 4

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Of course, they were all hungry, and helped themselves freely to the Stag's food; and as you would expect, the Stag soon starved to death.

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**Who acts:** Animals, you, Stag · **What happens:** be, help, expect, starve · **To what, where:** Animals

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Sick Stag. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Animals, you, Stag), 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:pg19994:86:4
# text = Of course, they were all hungry, and helped themselves freely to the Stag's food; and as you would expect, the Stag soon starved to death.
1	Of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
2	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	all	all	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	helped	help	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
11	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	10	obj	_	_
12	freely	freely	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Stag	Stag	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	's	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	expect	expect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	Stag	Stag	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	28	nsubj	_	_
27	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	28	advmod	_	_
28	starved	starve	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	conj	_	_
29	to	to	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	23	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Animals *= animal* |  |  |  |  | all, hungry *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **help** | past | Animals *= animal* *not said here* | Animals *= animal* |  |  |  | to the Stag's food; freely *property* | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent themselves=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **expect** | would | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **starve** | past | the Stag |  |  |  |  | to death; soon *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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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