---
title: But if you should ask him, _he_ would say he is an Eagle." — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: But if you should ask him, _he_ would say he is an Eagle." Who acts: you, Jackdaw. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Eagle and the Jackdaw, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Eagle and the Jackdaw, sentence 11

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But if you should ask him, \_he\_ would say he is an Eagle."

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**Who acts:** you, Jackdaw · **What happens:** ask, say, be · **To what, where:** Jackdaw, Eagle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Eagle and the Jackdaw. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Jackdaw), 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:pg19994:9:11
# text = But if you should ask him, _he_ would say he is an Eagle."
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
2	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
8	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	9	punct	_	_
11	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Eagle	Eagle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* *a condition, not said to happen* | should | you |  | Jackdaw |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | would | Jackdaw |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | present | Jackdaw | a Eagle |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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