---
title: He cried out to his captors, “Pray spare me, and do not take my life… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: He cried out to his captors, “Pray spare me, and do not take my life without cause or without inquiry. Who acts: TRUMPETER. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 12, sentence 10

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He cried out to his captors, “Pray spare me, and do not take my life without cause or without inquiry.

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**Who acts:** TRUMPETER · **What happens:** cry out, pray, spare, not take · **To what, where:** captors, TRUMPETER, life · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (TRUMPETER), 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:pg21:14:10
# text = He cried out to his captors, “Pray spare me, and do not take my life without cause or without inquiry.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	out	out	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	captors	captor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Pray	pray	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
10	spare	spare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	take	take	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
17	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	without	without	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	cause	cause	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
21	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	without	without	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	inquiry	inquiry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry out** *speech: express* | past | TRUMPETER |  | TRUMPETER's captors |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient that S»: agent=Agent to captor=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **pray** *in a quote* | infinitive | TRUMPETER *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **spare** *in a quote* | infinitive | TRUMPETER *not said here* | TRUMPETER |  |  |  |  | vn bill-54.5 «NP V NP NP.asset»: agent=Agent i=Asset |
| 4 | **not** **take** *in a quote* | infinitive · do-support |  | my life |  |  |  | without cause or inquiry | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=Theme |

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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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