---
title: Scarcely had the battle begun, when a great rout overwhelmed the Mic… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: Scarcely had the battle begun, when a great rout overwhelmed the Mice, who scampered off as fast as they could to their holes. Who acts: Scarcely, battle, great rout, Mice. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/7/100/)

<!-- 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 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/7/) / 100

# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 5, sentence 100

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Scarcely had the battle begun, when a great rout overwhelmed the Mice, who scampered off as fast as they could to their holes.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Scarcely, battle, great rout, Mice · **What happens:** have, begin, overwhelm, scamper off · **To what, where:** battle, Mice

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Scarcely, battle, great rout, Mice), 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:pg21:7:100
# text = Scarcely had the battle begun, when a great rout overwhelmed the Mice, who scampered off as fast as they could to their holes.
1	Scarcely	Scarcely	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	battle	battle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	begun	begin	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	rout	rout	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	overwhelmed	overwhelm	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
16	scampered	scamper	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
17	off	off	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	as	as	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	16	advmod	_	_
20	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
21	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
23	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	holes	hole	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Scarcely | the battle |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **begin** | participle | the battle *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **overwhelm** | past | a great rout | the Mice |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus mouse=Experiencer |
| 4 | **scamper off** | past | the Mice |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 99](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/7/99/)
- next →: [sentence 101](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/7/101/)
- ↑ back to [Aesop’s Fables, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/7/)