---
title: The Gnat buzzed away to tell the whole world about his victory, but… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: The Gnat buzzed away to tell the whole world about his victory, but instead he flew straight into a spider's web. Who acts: Gnat. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Lion and the Gnat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Lion and the Gnat, sentence 8

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The Gnat buzzed away to tell the whole world about his victory, but instead he flew straight into a spider's web.

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**Who acts:** Gnat · **What happens:** buzz away, tell, fly · **To what, where:** whole world, web · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Lion and the Gnat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Gnat), 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:pg19994:39:8
# text = The Gnat buzzed away to tell the whole world about his victory, but instead he flew straight into a spider's web.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Gnat	Gnat	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	buzzed	buzz	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	away	away	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	iobj	_	_
10	about	about	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	victory	victory	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	instead	instead	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
18	straight	straight	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
19	into	into	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	spider	spider	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	's	's	PART	POS	_	21	case	_	_
23	web	web	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **buzz away** | past | the Gnat |  |  |  |  | away *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | the Gnat *not said here* |  | the whole world |  |  | about Gnat's victory | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent world=Recipient about victory=Topic |
| 3 | **fly** | past | Gnat | a spider's web |  |  |  | instead *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location web=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:** «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 19994 (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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