---
title: The young Crab replied: “Quite true, dear Mother; and if you will sh… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: The young Crab replied: “Quite true, dear Mother; and if you will show me the straight way, I will promise to walk in it.” Who acts: young Crab, you. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/6/81/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Three hundred Aesop’s fables](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/) / [Aesop’s Fables, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/6/) / 81

# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 4, sentence 81

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The young Crab replied: “Quite true, dear Mother; and if you will show me the straight way, I will promise to walk in it.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** young Crab, you · **What happens:** reply, show, promise, walk · **To what, where:** straight way, young Crab, way · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (young Crab, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg21:6:81
# text = The young Crab replied: “Quite true, dear Mother; and if you will show me the straight way, I will promise to walk in it.”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Crab	Crab	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
6	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	Quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	25	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
14	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	show	show	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	advcl	_	_
18	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	iobj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	straight	straight	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
23	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
24	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	promise	promise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	walk	walk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	xcomp	_	_
28	in	in	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	25	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the young Crab |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **show** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | future | you | the straight way | the young Crab *= crab* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 3 | **promise** *speech: promise* *in a quote* | future | the young Crab *= crab* |  |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **walk** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | the young Crab *= crab* *not said here* |  |  | way |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in it=Trajectory |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 80](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/6/80/)
- next →: [sentence 82](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/6/82/)
- ↑ back to [Aesop’s Fables, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/6/)