---
title: He asked him sharply: “Why do you stand there gaping? — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: He asked him sharply: “Why do you stand there gaping? Who acts: Dog, Hare. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/3/57/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Three hundred Aesop’s fables](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/) / [Aesop’s Fables, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/3/) / 57

# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 1, sentence 57

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He asked him sharply: “Why do you stand there gaping?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Dog, Hare · **What happens:** ask, stand, gape · **To what, where:** Hare · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Dog, Hare), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg21:3:57
# text = He asked him sharply: “Why do you stand there gaping?
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	sharply	sharply	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
6	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
8	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	stand	stand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
11	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	10	advmod	_	_
12	gaping	gape	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Dog |  | Hare |  |  | sharply *property* | vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP that S»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **stand** *in a quote* | present · do-support | Hare |  |  | there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **gape** *in a quote* | gerund | Hare *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/3/56/)
- next →: [sentence 58](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/3/58/)
- ↑ back to [Aesop’s Fables, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/3/)