---
title: He replied, “I learned it from the Ass, by witnessing his fate.” — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: He replied, “I learned it from the Ass, by witnessing his fate.” Who acts: Carpenter. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 8, 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/pg21/10/13/)

<!-- 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/) / [Three hundred Aesop’s fables](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/) / [Aesop’s Fables, part 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/10/) / 13

# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 8, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He replied, “I learned it from the Ass, by witnessing his fate.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Carpenter · **What happens:** reply, learn, witness, fate · **To what, where:** fraction, Ass, fate · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Carpenter), 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:pg21:10:13
# text = He replied, “I learned it from the Ass, by witnessing his fate.”
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	learned	learn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	from	from	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Ass	ass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	witnessing	witness	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	fate	fate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Carpenter |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **learn** *in a quote* | past | Carpenter | fraction |  | the Ass |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent it=Topic from ass=Source |
| 3 | **witness** *in a quote* | gerund | Carpenter *not said here* | Carpenter's fate |  |  |  |  | vn captain-29.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fate=Beneficiary |
| 4 | **fate** *in a quote* |  | Carpenter |  |  |  |  |  | nom fate «event transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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:** «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 21 (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 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/10/12/)
- next →: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/10/14/)
- ↑ back to [Aesop’s Fables, part 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/10/)