---
title: THE OXEN once upon a time sought to destroy the Butchers, who practi… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: THE OXEN once upon a time sought to destroy the Butchers, who practiced a trade destructive to their race. Who acts: OXEN, Butchers. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 3, 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/pg21/5/38/)

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 3, sentence 38

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THE OXEN once upon a time sought to destroy the Butchers, who practiced a trade destructive to their race.

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**Who acts:** OXEN, Butchers · **What happens:** seek, destroy, practice, race · **To what, where:** Butchers, trade

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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 (OXEN, Butchers), 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:pg21:5:38
# text = THE OXEN once upon a time sought to destroy the Butchers, who practiced a trade destructive to their race.
1	THE	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	OXEN	oxen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
7	sought	seek	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	destroy	destroy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Butchers	butcher	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	practiced	practice	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	trade	trade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	destructive	destructive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	race	race	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seek** | participle | the OXEN upon a time |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **destroy** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the OXEN upon a time *not said here* | the Butchers |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent butcher=Patient |
| 3 | **practice** | past | the Butchers | a trade |  |  |  | destructive *property* | vn rehearse-26.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent trade=Theme |
| 4 | **race** |  | Oxen |  |  |  |  |  | nom race «event 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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