---
title: A GROOM used to spend whole days in currycombing and rubbing down hi… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: A GROOM used to spend whole days in currycombing and rubbing down his Horse, but at the same time stole his oats and sold them for his own profit. Who acts: GROOM. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/5/16/)

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 3, sentence 16

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A GROOM used to spend whole days in currycombing and rubbing down his Horse, but at the same time stole his oats and sold them for his own profit.

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**Who acts:** GROOM · **What happens:** use, spend, currycomb, rub down, steal, sell · **To what, where:** GROOM, Horse, oats

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (GROOM), 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:pg21:5:16
# text = A GROOM used to spend whole days in currycombing and rubbing down his Horse, but at the same time stole his oats and sold them for his own profit.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	GROOM	groom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
3	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	spend	spend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
9	currycombing	currycomb	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	rubbing	rub	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	conj	_	_
12	down	down	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	Horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
21	stole	steal	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	oats	oat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	sold	sell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	conj	_	_
26	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obj	_	_
27	for	for	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
29	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	profit	profit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | participle |  | a GROOM *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **spend** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  | day |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **currycomb** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **rub down** | gerund |  |  | Groom's Horse |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent horse=Destination |
| 5 | **steal** | past | a GROOM | Groom's oats |  |  | time |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location oat=Theme |
| 6 | **sell** | past | a GROOM *not said here* | Horse |  |  |  | for Groom's own profit | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.asset»: agent=Agent they=Theme for profit=Asset |
| 7 | **profit** |  | Groom |  |  |  |  |  | nom profit «possession intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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