---
title: A Lion had been watching three Bullocks feeding in an open field. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: A Lion had been watching three Bullocks feeding in an open field. Who acts: Lion, three Bullocks. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Three Bullocks and a Lion, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, Three Bullocks and a Lion, sentence 1

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A Lion had been watching three Bullocks feeding in an open field.

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**Who acts:** Lion, three Bullocks · **What happens:** watch, feed · **To what, where:** three Bullocks, open field

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Three Bullocks and a Lion. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lion, three Bullocks), 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:pg19994:92:1
# text = A Lion had been watching three Bullocks feeding in an open field.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Lion	Lion	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	aux	_	_
5	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
7	Bullocks	bullock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	feeding	feed	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	field	field	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **watch** | past · perfect · progressive | a Lion | three Bullocks |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bullock=Theme |
| 2 | **feed** | gerund | three Bullocks *not said here* |  |  | a open field |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent in field=Location |

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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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