---
title: The Tortoise exclaimed in the moment of death: “I have deserved my p… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: The Tortoise exclaimed in the moment of death: “I have deserved my present fate; for what had I to do with wings and clouds, who can with difficulty move about on the earth?” Who acts: Tortoise, wings, my. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 2, with its depend
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/4/27/)

<!-- 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 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/4/) / 27

# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 2, sentence 27

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Tortoise exclaimed in the moment of death: “I have deserved my present fate; for what had I to do with wings and clouds, who can with difficulty move about on the earth?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Tortoise, wings, my · **What happens:** exclaim, deserve, do, move about, fate · **To what, where:** present fate, earth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Tortoise, wings, my), 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:pg21:4:27
# text = The Tortoise exclaimed in the moment of death: “I have deserved my present fate; for what had I to do with wings and clouds, who can with difficulty move about on the earth?”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Tortoise	Tortoise	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	exclaimed	exclaim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	deserved	deserve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
14	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	present	present	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	fate	fate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
18	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	23	obj	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
24	with	with	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	clouds	cloud	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
29	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	33	nsubj	_	_
30	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	33	aux	_	_
31	with	with	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	difficulty	difficulty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obl	_	_
33	move	move	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	acl:relcl	_	_
34	about	about	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
35	on	on	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
36	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
37	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	23	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **exclaim** *speech: express* | past | the Tortoise |  |  |  | moment |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **deserve** *in a quote* | present · perfect | the Tortoise *= tortoise* | my present fate |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | past | the Tortoise *= tortoise* |  |  |  |  | with wings and clouds | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 4 | **move about** *in a quote* | can | wings and clouds |  |  | the earth |  | with difficulty; about *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme on earth=Trajectory |
| 5 | **fate** *in a quote* |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom fate «event transitive»: poss=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 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/4/26/)
- next →: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/4/28/)
- ↑ back to [Aesop’s Fables, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/4/)