---
title: He had been working since sunrise and his strokes were not so sure a… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: He had been working since sunrise and his strokes were not so sure as they had been early that morning. Who acts: He, strokes, his. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Mercury and the Woodman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, Mercury and the Woodman, sentence 3

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He had been working since sunrise and his strokes were not so sure as they had been early that morning.

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**Who acts:** He, strokes, his · **What happens:** work, not be, be, stroke · **To what, where:** morning

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Mercury and the Woodman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (He, strokes, his), 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:pg19994:93:3
# text = He had been working since sunrise and his strokes were not so sure as they had been early that morning.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	aux	_	_
4	working	work	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	since	since	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	sunrise	sunrise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	strokes	stroke	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
14	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
17	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	20	cop	_	_
18	early	early	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	20	advmod	_	_
19	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
20	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **work** | past · perfect · progressive | He |  |  |  | sunrise |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **is** | past | his strokes |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | past · perfect | strokes *= stroke* | that morning |  |  |  | early *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **stroke** |  | his *= he* |  |  |  |  |  | nom stroke «act transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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