---
title: A Lion lay in ambush in the hope of making them his prey, but was af… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: A Lion lay in ambush in the hope of making them his prey, but was afraid to attack them while they kept together. Who acts: Lion, hope, unawares. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 10, sentence 129

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A Lion lay in ambush in the hope of making them his prey, but was afraid to attack them while they kept together.

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**Who acts:** Lion, hope, unawares · **What happens:** lie, make, be, attack, keep together · **To what, where:** ambush, unawares

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lion, hope, unawares), 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:pg21:12:129
# text = A Lion lay in ambush in the hope of making them his prey, but was afraid to attack them while they kept together.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	ambush	ambush	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	hope	hope	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
10	making	make	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
11	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	prey	prey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	advcl	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	attack	attack	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
20	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
24	together	together	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | a Lion |  |  | ambush |  | in the hope | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in ambush=Location |
| 2 | **make** | gerund | the hope *not said here* | unawares *= unaware* |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP NP»: agent=Asset they=Beneficiary prey=Product |
| 3 | **is** | past | a Lion *not said here* |  |  |  |  | afraid *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **attack** | to-infinitive | a Lion *not said here* | unawares *= unaware* |  |  |  |  | vn attack-60.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient |
| 5 | **keep together** | past | unawares *= unaware* |  |  |  |  | together *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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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