---
title: Thus it happened that the axe slipped and flew out of his hands into… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: Thus it happened that the axe slipped and flew out of his hands into the pool. Who acts: it, axe. 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 4

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Thus it happened that the axe slipped and flew out of his hands into the pool.

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**Who acts:** it, axe · **What happens:** happen, slip, fly out · **To what, where:** hands, pool

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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 (it, axe), 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:pg19994:93:4
# text = Thus it happened that the axe slipped and flew out of his hands into the pool.
1	Thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	slipped	slip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
10	out	out	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
14	into	into	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	pool	pool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | past | it |  |  |  |  | thus *property* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **slip** | past | the axe |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **fly out** | past | the axe *not said here* | his hands |  | the pool |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent hand=Theme into pool=Trajectory |

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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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