---
title: He was neither wrathful, cruel, nor tyrannical, but just and gentle… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: He was neither wrathful, cruel, nor tyrannical, but just and gentle as a king could be. Who acts: king. 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 51

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He was neither wrathful, cruel, nor tyrannical, but just and gentle as a king could be.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** be

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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 (king), 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:pg21:3:51
# text = He was neither wrathful, cruel, nor tyrannical, but just and gentle as a king could be.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	neither	neither	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	wrathful	wrathful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	cruel	cruel	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	9	cc	_	_
9	tyrannical	tyrannical	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	just	just	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
15	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | king |  |  |  |  | neither, wrathful *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | 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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