---
title: The poisonous flies and gnats swarmed around by thousands; in vain o… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The poisonous flies and gnats swarmed around by thousands; in vain one waved myrtle-branches about like mad; the audacious insect population did not cease to sting; nor was there a single person in the well-crammed carriage whose face was not swollen and sore from their ravenous bites. Who acts: aud
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/9/82/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Andersen's Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/) / [The Shoes of Fortune, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/9/) / 82

# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shoes of Fortune, part 5, sentence 82

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The poisonous flies and gnats swarmed around by thousands; in vain one waved myrtle-branches about like mad; the audacious insect population did not cease to sting; nor was there a single person in the well-crammed carriage whose face was not swollen and sore from their ravenous bites.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** audacious insect population, single person, face, flies · **What happens:** swarm around, wave, not cease, sting, be, cram · **To what, where:** poisonous flies, ravenous bites

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shoes of Fortune, 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 (audacious insect population, single person, face, flies), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg1597:9:82
# text = The poisonous flies and gnats swarmed around by thousands; in vain one waved myrtle-branches about like mad; the audacious insect population did not cease to sting; nor was there a single person in the well-crammed carriage whose face was not swollen and sore from their ravenous bites.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	poisonous	poisonous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	flies	fly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	gnats	gnat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	conj	_	_
6	swarmed	swarm	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	_
7	around	around	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	by	by	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	thousands	thousand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
14	waved	wave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	amod	_	_
15	myrtle	myrtle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	_
18	about	about	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	like	like	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	mad	mad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
23	audacious	audacious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
24	insect	insect	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	compound	_	_
25	population	population	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj	_	_
26	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
27	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	28	advmod	_	_
28	cease	cease	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	parataxis	_	_
29	to	to	PART	TO	_	30	mark	_	_
30	sting	sting	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
32	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	34	cc	_	_
33	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	34	cop	_	_
34	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	28	advcl	_	_
35	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
36	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	37	amod	_	_
37	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	nsubj	_	_
38	in	in	ADP	IN	_	43	case	_	_
39	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	43	det	_	_
40	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	42	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	40	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	crammed	cram	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	43	amod	_	_
43	carriage	carriage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	nmod	_	_
44	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	45	nmod:poss	_	_
45	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	48	nsubj	_	_
46	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	48	cop	_	_
47	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	48	advmod	_	_
48	swollen	swollen	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	43	acl:relcl	_	_
49	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	50	cc	_	_
50	sore	sore	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	48	conj	_	_
51	from	from	ADP	IN	_	54	case	_	_
52	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	54	nmod:poss	_	_
53	ravenous	ravenous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	54	amod	_	_
54	bites	bite	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	50	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
55	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swarm around** | participle |  | the poisonous flies and gnats *not said here* |  |  |  | by thousands; around *property* | vn swarm-47.5.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by thousand=Location |
| 2 | **wave** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **cease** | past · do-support | the audacious insect population |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **sting** | to-infinitive | the audacious insect population *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 5 | **is** | past | a single person in the crammed carriage |  |  |  |  | there *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **cram** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 7 | **not** **is** | past | face |  |  |  |  | swollen *property* | tree rules |
| 8 | **be** |  | face *not said here* |  |  | flies's ravenous bites |  |  | tree rules |
| 9 | **bite** |  | flies *= fly* |  |  |  |  |  | nom bite «state transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 1597 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 81](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/9/81/)
- next →: [sentence 83](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/9/83/)
- ↑ back to [The Shoes of Fortune, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/9/)