---
title: For the sake of the nuts, the passers-by broke its branches with sto… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: For the sake of the nuts, the passers-by broke its branches with stones and sticks. Who acts: passers. 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 79

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For the sake of the nuts, the passers-by broke its branches with stones and sticks.

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**Who acts:** passers · **What happens:** break · **To what, where:** branches

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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 (passers), 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:pg21:11:79
# text = For the sake of the nuts, the passers-by broke its branches with stones and sticks.
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sake	sake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	nuts	nut	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	passers	passer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	by	by	ADP	IN	_	9	nmod	_	_
12	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	stones	stone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break** | past | the passers | sake's branches |  |  |  | for the sake of the nuts; with stones and sticks | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent branch=Patient with stone=Instrument |

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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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