---
title: If men had all they wished, they would be often ruined. — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: If men had all they wished, they would be often ruined. Who acts: men, Tortoise. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 2, 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/pg21/4/28/)

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 2, sentence 28

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If men had all they wished, they would be often ruined.

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**Who acts:** men, Tortoise · **What happens:** have, wish, ruin · **To what, where:** all, Tortoise

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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 (men, Tortoise), 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:pg21:4:28
# text = If men had all they wished, they would be often ruined.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
4	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	3	obj	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	aux:pass	_	_
11	often	often	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	ruined	ruin	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | men | all |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent all=Patient |
| 2 | **wish** | past | Tortoise |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 3 | **ruin** | would · passive |  | Tortoise |  |  |  | often *property* | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

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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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