---
title: A FOX, running before the hounds, came across a Woodcutter felling a… — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: A FOX, running before the hounds, came across a Woodcutter felling an oak and begged him to show him a safe hiding-place. Who acts: FOX, Woodcutter. 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 78

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A FOX, running before the hounds, came across a Woodcutter felling an oak and begged him to show him a safe hiding-place.

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**Who acts:** FOX, Woodcutter · **What happens:** run, come, fell, beg, show · **To what, where:** Woodcutter, oak, Hound, safe hiding place

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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 (FOX, Woodcutter), 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:pg21:8:78
# text = A FOX, running before the hounds, came across a Woodcutter felling an oak and begged him to show him a safe hiding-place.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	FOX	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	running	run	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
5	before	before	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	hounds	hound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
9	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	across	across	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Woodcutter	woodcutter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	felling	fell	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	acl	_	_
14	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	oak	oak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	show	show	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	advcl	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	iobj	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
23	safe	safe	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
24	hiding	hiding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **run** | gerund | a FOX *not said here* |  |  |  | before the hounds |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme before hound=Trajectory |
| 2 | **come** | past | a FOX |  |  | a Woodcutter |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme across woodcutter=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **fell** | gerund | a Woodcutter *not said here* | a oak |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | a FOX *not said here* |  | Hound |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP PP.Topic»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 5 | **show** | to-infinitive | a FOX *not said here* | a safe hiding place | Hound |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient place=Topic |

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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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