---
title: But though he could swim a little, he did not dare risk going into t… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: But though he could swim a little, he did not dare risk going into the pond without some help. Who acts: Mouse, risk. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Frog and the Mouse, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/94/6/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Aesop for Children](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/) / [The Frog and the Mouse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/94/) / 6

# The Aesop for Children, The Frog and the Mouse, sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But though he could swim a little, he did not dare risk going into the pond without some help.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Mouse, risk · **What happens:** swim, not dare, go · **To what, where:** little, risk, pond

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Frog and the Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Mouse, risk), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg19994:94:6
# text = But though he could swim a little, he did not dare risk going into the pond without some help.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	swim	swim	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	dare	dare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
13	risk	risk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	going	go	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	acl	_	_
15	into	into	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	pond	pond	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	without	without	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	20	det	_	_
20	help	help	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** | could | Mouse | a little |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme little=Trajectory |
| 2 | **not** **dare** | past · do-support | Mouse | risk |  |  |  | without some help | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent risk=Recipient |
| 3 | **go** | gerund | risk *not said here* |  |  | the pond |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme into pond=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/94/5/)
- next →: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/94/7/)
- ↑ back to [The Frog and the Mouse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg19994/94/)