---
title: The axe was all he possessed with which to make a living, and he had… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The axe was all he possessed with which to make a living, and he had not money enough to buy a new one. Who acts: he. 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 6

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The axe was all he possessed with which to make a living, and he had not money enough to buy a new one.

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**Who acts:** he · **What happens:** possess, make, have, buy · **To what, where:** living, money, new one

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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), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg19994:709`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg19994:93:6
# text = The axe was all he possessed with which to make a living, and he had not money enough to buy a new one.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	0	root	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	possessed	possess	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	10	obl	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl:relcl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	living	living	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	money	money	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	enough	enough	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	buy	buy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	acl	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **possess** | past | he |  |  |  |  |  | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **make** | to-infinitive |  | a living |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset living=Product |
| 3 | **have** | past | he | money |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent money=Patient |
| 4 | **buy** | to-infinitive | he *not said here* | a new one |  |  |  |  | vn accept-77.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Theme |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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