---
title: The Bat assured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus wa… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: The Bat assured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus was set free. Who acts: Bat, 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/pg21/3/37/)

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 1, sentence 37

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The Bat assured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus was set free.

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**Who acts:** Bat, Grasshopper · **What happens:** assure, not be, be · **To what, where:** Grasshopper, bird

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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 (Bat, 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:pg21:3:37
# text = The Bat assured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus was set free.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Bat	Bat	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	assured	assure	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
8	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	set	set	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	free	free	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **assure** | past | the Bat |  | Grasshopper |  |  |  | vn advise-37.9 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 2 | **not** **is a** | past | Grasshopper | a bird but a mouse |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | free, thus *property* | 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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