---
title: “Anything to please you,” said the old man; “we can but try.” — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: “Anything to please you,” said the old man; “we can but try.” Who acts: old man. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 7, sentence 58

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“Anything to please you,” said the old man; “we can but try.”

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** please, say, try · **To what, where:** you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man), 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:pg21:9:58
# text = “Anything to please you,” said the old man; “we can but try.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	8	nsubj	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	please	please	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	acl	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **please** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the old man *not said here* | you |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus you=Experiencer |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **try** *in a quote* | can |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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