---
title: They soon began to boast of their respective superiority to each oth… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: They soon began to boast of their respective superiority to each other in strength and prowess. Who acts: Lion. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 1, sentence 142

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They soon began to boast of their respective superiority to each other in strength and prowess.

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**Who acts:** Lion · **What happens:** begin, boast · **To what, where:** each, strength

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lion), 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:pg21:3:142
# text = They soon began to boast of their respective superiority to each other in strength and prowess.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
3	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	boast	boast	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
8	respective	respective	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	superiority	superiority	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	5	obl	_	_
12	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	fixed	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	strength	strength	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	prowess	prowess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | Lion |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **boast** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | Lion *not said here* |  | each | strength and prowess |  | of Lion's respective superiority | vn complain-37.8 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to each=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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