Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 5, sentence 29

At shearing time, wishing to take his fleece and to avoid expense, she sheared him herself, but used the shears so unskillfully that with the fleece she sheared the flesh.

Who acts: shearing time, wit · What happens: wish, take, avoid, shear, use · To what, where: fleece, expense, vessel, shears, flesh

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 (shearing time, wit), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	At	at	ADP	_	3 time	case
2	shearing	shearing	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 time	compound
3	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 sheared	obl
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 wishing	punct
5	wishing	wish	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	3 time	acl
6	to	to	PART	_	7 take	mark
7	take	take	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 wishing	xcomp
8	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 fleece	nmod:poss
9	fleece	fleece	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 take	obj
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 avoid	cc
11	to	to	PART	_	12 avoid	mark
12	avoid	avoid	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 take	conj
13	expense	expense	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 avoid	obj
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 time	punct
15	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 sheared	nsubj
16	sheared	shear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
17	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 sheared	obj
18	herself	herself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	16 sheared	obl
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 used	punct
20	but	but	CCONJ	_	21 used	cc
21	used	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 sheared	conj
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 shears	det
23	shears	shear	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 used	obj
24	so	so	ADV	_	25 unskillfully	advmod
25	unskillfully	unskillfully	ADV	_	21 used	advmod
26	that	that	SCONJ	_	31 sheared	mark
27	with	with	ADP	_	29 fleece	case
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 fleece	det
29	fleece	fleece	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 sheared	obl
30	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 sheared	nsubj
31	sheared	shear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 used	advcl
32	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	33 flesh	det
33	flesh	flesh	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 sheared	obj
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	16 sheared	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	wish	gerund	shearing time not said here				vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
2	take not said to happen	to-infinitive	shearing time not said here	vessel's fleece			vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fleece=Theme
3	avoid	to-infinitive	shearing time not said here	expense			vn avoid-52 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent expense=Location
4	shear	past	wit	vessel	time	wit obl	vn wipe_instr-10.4.2-1 «NP V NP.initial_location»: agent=Agent he=Initial_Location
5	use	past	wit not said here	the shears		unskillfully property	vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shear=Patient
6	shear	past	wit	the flesh		with the fleece	vn wipe_instr-10.4.2-1 «NP V NP.initial_location»: agent=Agent flesh=Initial_Location

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.

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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg21/7/29/