---
title: A RAVEN saw a Swan and desired to secure for himself the same beauti… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: A RAVEN saw a Swan and desired to secure for himself the same beautiful plumage. Who acts: RAVEN. 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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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 2, sentence 41

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A RAVEN saw a Swan and desired to secure for himself the same beautiful plumage.

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**Who acts:** RAVEN · **What happens:** see, desire, secure · **To what, where:** Swan, same beautiful plumage

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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 (RAVEN), 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:pg21:4:41
# text = A RAVEN saw a Swan and desired to secure for himself the same beautiful plumage.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	RAVEN	raven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	Swan	Swan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	desired	desire	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	secure	secure	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obl	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	plumage	plumage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | a RAVEN | a Swan |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer swan=Stimulus |
| 2 | **desire** | participle | a RAVEN *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **secure** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a RAVEN *not said here* | the same beautiful plumage |  |  |  | for Goat | vn ensure-99 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Precondition plumage=Theme for himself=Beneficiary |

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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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