---
title: Minerva, wondering why they had preferred trees not yielding fruit,… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: Minerva, wondering why they had preferred trees not yielding fruit, inquired the reason for their choice. Who acts: Minerva, Venus. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 13, sentence 23

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Minerva, wondering why they had preferred trees not yielding fruit, inquired the reason for their choice.

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**Who acts:** Minerva, Venus · **What happens:** wonder, prefer, not yield, inquire · **To what, where:** trees, fruit, reason · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Minerva, Venus), 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:pg21:15:23
# text = Minerva, wondering why they had preferred trees not yielding fruit, inquired the reason for their choice.
1	Minerva	minerva	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
3	wondering	wonder	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	1	acl	_	_
4	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	preferred	prefer	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	ccomp	_	_
8	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	yielding	yield	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
11	fruit	fruit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
13	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	choice	choice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wonder** *speech: ask* | gerund | Minerva *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V what S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **prefer** | past · perfect | Venus | trees |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer tree=Stimulus |
| 3 | **not** **yield** | gerund | Venus *not said here* | fruit |  |  |  |  | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent fruit=Theme |
| 4 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past | Minerva | the reason |  |  |  | for Venus's choice | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent reason=Recipient |

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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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