---
title: Often the flies were quite full of good company; it was said that ge… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Often the flies were quite full of good company; it was said that generals' wives and privy councillors' wives had been up there. Who acts: flies, wives. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Our Aunt, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Our Aunt, sentence 41

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Often the flies were quite full of good company; it was said that generals' wives and privy councillors' wives had been up there.

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**Who acts:** flies, wives · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** machinist · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Our Aunt. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flies, wives), 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:pg27200:139:41
# text = Often the flies were quite full of good company; it was said that generals' wives and privy councillors' wives had been up there.
1	Often	often	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	flies	fly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	company	company	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
15	generals	general	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	'	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	wives	wife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod:poss	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	privy	privy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	councillors	councillor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	'	's	PART	POS	_	17	case	_	_
22	wives	wife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	nsubj	_	_
23	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
24	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	26	cop	_	_
25	up	up	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the flies |  |  |  |  | of good company; full, often *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | machinist |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: subject=Topic |
| 3 | **is** | past · perfect | generals's wives and privy councillors's wives |  |  |  |  | there *property* | tree rules |

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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:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (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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