---
title: A Fox, seeing this, longed to possess the meat himself, and by a wil… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: A Fox, seeing this, longed to possess the meat himself, and by a wily stratagem succeeded. Who acts: Fox. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 5, sentence 22

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A Fox, seeing this, longed to possess the meat himself, and by a wily stratagem succeeded.

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**Who acts:** Fox · **What happens:** see, long, possess, succeed · **To what, where:** this, meat

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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 (Fox), 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:pg21:7:22
# text = A Fox, seeing this, longed to possess the meat himself, and by a wily stratagem succeeded.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	seeing	see	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
5	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
7	longed	long	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	possess	possess	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	by	by	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	wily	wily	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	stratagem	stratagem	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
19	succeeded	succeed	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | gerund | a Fox *not said here* | this |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer this=Stimulus |
| 2 | **long** | past | a Fox |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **possess** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a Fox *not said here* | the meat |  |  |  | Fisherman *obl:unmarked* | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot meat=Theme |
| 4 | **succeed** | past | a Fox *not said here* |  |  |  |  | by a wily stratagem | vn succeed-74-1 «NP V»: agent=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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