---
title: It was like a company of flies in a bottle, and I was in the bottle… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was like a company of flies in a bottle, and I was in the bottle with them; for I was their director. Who acts: complexion, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Puppet-show Man, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Puppet-show Man, sentence 50

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It was like a company of flies in a bottle, and I was in the bottle with them; for I was their director.

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**Who acts:** complexion, I · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** bottle

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Puppet-show Man. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (complexion, I), 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:pg27200:152:50
# text = It was like a company of flies in a bottle, and I was in the bottle with them; for I was their director.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	like	like	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	company	company	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	flies	fly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	bottle	bottle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	bottle	bottle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	parataxis	_	_
18	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	for	for	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
22	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
24	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	director	director	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | complexion |  |  |  |  | like a company and flies's director; of flies in a bottle | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | I |  |  | the bottle |  | with flies *= fly* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | I |  |  |  |  | for flies's director | 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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