---
title: A WIDOW who was fond of cleaning had two little maidens to wait on h… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: A WIDOW who was fond of cleaning had two little maidens to wait on her. Who acts: WIDOW. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 4, sentence 43

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A WIDOW who was fond of cleaning had two little maidens to wait on her.

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**Who acts:** WIDOW · **What happens:** be, have, wait · **To what, where:** two little maidens

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (WIDOW), 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:pg21:6:43
# text = A WIDOW who was fond of cleaning had two little maidens to wait on her.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	WIDOW	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	fond	fond	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	acl:relcl	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	cleaning	cleaning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
8	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	maidens	maiden	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	wait	wait	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | a WIDOW |  |  |  |  | of cleaning; fond *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | a WIDOW | two little maidens |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent maiden=Patient |
| 3 | **wait** | to-infinitive | a WIDOW *not said here* |  |  |  |  | on Body | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on she=Location |

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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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