---
title: They tried with all their strength, and were not able to do it. — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: They tried with all their strength, and were not able to do it. Who acts: Father. 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 31

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They tried with all their strength, and were not able to do it.

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**Who acts:** Father · **What happens:** try, not be, do · **To what, where:** 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 (Father), 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:pg21:3:31
# text = They tried with all their strength, and were not able to do it.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	6	det:predet	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	strength	strength	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | Father |  |  |  |  | with Father's strength | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **not** **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** | to-infinitive |  | strength |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |

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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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