---
title: A man who lived a long time ago believed that he could read the futu… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: A man who lived a long time ago believed that he could read the future in the stars. Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Astrologer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Astrologer, sentence 1

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A man who lived a long time ago believed that he could read the future in the stars.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** live, believe, read · **To what, where:** future, stars · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Astrologer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg19994:91:1
# text = A man who lived a long time ago believed that he could read the future in the stars.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
3	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	_
4	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	acl:relcl	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
8	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
9	believed	believe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	read	read	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	future	future	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	stars	star	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past | a man |  |  |  | time | ago *property* | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **believe** | past | a man |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **read** | could | man | the future |  | the stars |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent future=Topic |

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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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