---
title: The Birds peeped out, and Dr. Cat, with much solicitude, asked how t… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Birds peeped out, and Dr. Cat, with much solicitude, asked how they were. Who acts: 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 5

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The Birds peeped out, and Dr. Cat, with much solicitude, asked how they were.

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**Who acts:** Birds · **What happens:** peep out, ask, be · **To what, where:** Cat · **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 (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:pg19994:89:5
# text = The Birds peeped out, and Dr. Cat, with much solicitude, asked how they were.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	peeped	peep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	out	out	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	Dr.	Dr.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod:desc	_	_
8	Cat	Cat	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	solicitude	solicitude	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
15	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **peep out** | past | the Birds | Cat  Dr. |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **be** | past | Birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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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