---
title: He tried everything he could think of to reach the water, but all hi… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: He tried everything he could think of to reach the water, but all his efforts were in vain. Who acts: Fox, efforts. 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 39

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He tried everything he could think of to reach the water, but all his efforts were in vain.

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**Who acts:** Fox, efforts · **What happens:** try, think, reach, be · **To what, where:** everything, water · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Fox, efforts), 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:pg21:11:39
# text = He tried everything he could think of to reach the water, but all his efforts were in vain.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	2	obj	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	acl:relcl	_	_
7	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
14	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	16	det:predet	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	efforts	effort	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | Fox | everything |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent everything=Eventuality |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | could | Fox |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **reach** | to-infinitive |  | the water |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent water=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | past | Fox's efforts |  |  |  |  | vain *property* | tree rules |

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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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