---
title: One day he heard that some Birds in the neighborhood were ailing and… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: One day he heard that some Birds in the neighborhood were ailing and needed a doctor. Who acts: Cat, Birds. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cat and the Birds, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Cat and the Birds, sentence 3

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One day he heard that some Birds in the neighborhood were ailing and needed a doctor.

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**Who acts:** Cat, Birds · **What happens:** hear, ail, need · **To what, where:** doctor · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cat and the Birds. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Cat, Birds), 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:pg19994:89:3
# text = One day he heard that some Birds in the neighborhood were ailing and needed a doctor.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
6	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	7	det	_	_
7	Birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	neighborhood	neighborhood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	ailing	ail	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	ccomp	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	needed	need	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	doctor	doctor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | Cat |  |  |  | day |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **ail** | past · progressive | some Birds in the neighborhood |  |  |  |  |  | vn pain-40.8.1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **need** | past | Cat *not said here* | a doctor |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot doctor=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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