---
title: A BIRDCATCHER was about to sit down to a dinner of herbs when a frie… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: A BIRDCATCHER was about to sit down to a dinner of herbs when a friend unexpectedly came in. Who acts: BIRDCATCHER, friend. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 6, sentence 103

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A BIRDCATCHER was about to sit down to a dinner of herbs when a friend unexpectedly came in.

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**Who acts:** BIRDCATCHER, friend · **What happens:** be, sit down, come in

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (BIRDCATCHER, friend), 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:pg21:8:103
# text = A BIRDCATCHER was about to sit down to a dinner of herbs when a friend unexpectedly came in.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	BIRDCATCHER	BIRDCATCHER	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	about	about	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	sit	sit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	down	down	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	herbs	herb	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	unexpectedly	unexpectedly	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
18	in	in	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | a BIRDCATCHER |  |  |  |  | about *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit down** | to-infinitive | a BIRDCATCHER *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to a dinner of herbs | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **come in** | past | a friend |  |  |  |  | unexpectedly *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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