---
title: Failing to obtain food among the Doves, he returned to the Jackdaws. — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: Failing to obtain food among the Doves, he returned to the Jackdaws. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 9, sentence 106

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Failing to obtain food among the Doves, he returned to the Jackdaws.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** fail, not obtain, return · **To what, where:** food

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg21:11:106
# text = Failing to obtain food among the Doves, he returned to the Jackdaws.
1	Failing	fail	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
2	to	to	PART	TO	_	3	mark	_	_
3	obtain	obtain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	xcomp	_	_
4	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
5	among	among	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	Doves	Dove	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Jackdaws	Jackdaws	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fail** | gerund | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **not** **obtain** | to-infinitive | man *not said here* | food |  |  |  | among the Doves | vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset food=Theme |
| 3 | **return** | past | man |  |  |  |  | to the Jackdaws *result* | vn convert-26.6.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to jackdaws=Result |

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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:** «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.

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