---
title: A WEASEL, inactive from age and infirmities, was not able to catch m… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: A WEASEL, inactive from age and infirmities, was not able to catch mice as he once did. Who acts: WEASEL, Acquaintance. 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 26

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A WEASEL, inactive from age and infirmities, was not able to catch mice as he once did.

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**Who acts:** WEASEL, Acquaintance · **What happens:** not be, catch, do · **To what, where:** mice

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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 (WEASEL, Acquaintance), 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:pg21:12:26
# text = A WEASEL, inactive from age and infirmities, was not able to catch mice as he once did.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	WEASEL	weasel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	inactive	inactive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	age	age	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	infirmities	infirmity	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	19	advmod	_	_
19	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | a WEASEL |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **catch** | to-infinitive | a WEASEL *not said here* | mice |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mouse=Theme |
| 3 | **do** | past | Acquaintance |  |  |  |  | once *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: 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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