---
title: But the Serpent's hold only tightened, and slowly the Eagle sank bac… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: But the Serpent's hold only tightened, and slowly the Eagle sank back to earth, gasping for breath. Who acts: Eagle. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Serpent and the Eagle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Serpent and the Eagle, sentence 4

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But the Serpent's hold only tightened, and slowly the Eagle sank back to earth, gasping for breath.

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**Who acts:** Eagle · **What happens:** tighten, sink back, gasp

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Serpent and the Eagle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Eagle), 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:pg19994:96:4
# text = But the Serpent's hold only tightened, and slowly the Eagle sank back to earth, gasping for breath.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Serpent	Serpent	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	's	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	hold	hold	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	tightened	tighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Eagle	Eagle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	sank	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
14	back	back	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	gasping	gasp	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tighten** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **sink back** | past | the Eagle |  |  |  |  | to earth; slowly *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **gasp** | gerund | the Eagle *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for breath | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient S\_INF»: agent=Agent for breath=Recipient |

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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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