---
title: The Weasel refused, saying that he was by nature the enemy of all bi… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: The Weasel refused, saying that he was by nature the enemy of all birds. Who acts: Weasel, Grasshopper. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/3/36/)

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 1, sentence 36

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The Weasel refused, saying that he was by nature the enemy of all birds.

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**Who acts:** Weasel, Grasshopper · **What happens:** refuse, say, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Weasel, Grasshopper), 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:pg21:3:36
# text = The Weasel refused, saying that he was by nature the enemy of all birds.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Weasel	Weasel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	refused	refuse	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	by	by	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	nature	nature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	ccomp	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	enemy	enemy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	det	_	_
15	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **refuse** | past | the Weasel |  |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | the Weasel *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | Grasshopper |  |  |  |  | by nature and the enemy of all birds | tree rules |

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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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