---
title: In vain they drove them away with a myrtle branch, the flies stung t… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In vain they drove them away with a myrtle branch, the flies stung them notwithstanding. Who acts: flies. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Best Thing the Goloshes Did, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Best Thing the Goloshes Did, sentence 27

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In vain they drove them away with a myrtle branch, the flies stung them notwithstanding.

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**Who acts:** flies · **What happens:** drive, sting, notwithstand · **To what, where:** thousands

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Best Thing the Goloshes Did. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flies), 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:pg27200:45:27
# text = In vain they drove them away with a myrtle branch, the flies stung them notwithstanding.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	advcl	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	drove	drive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	acl:relcl	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	away	away	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	myrtle	myrtle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	branch	branch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	flies	fly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
14	stung	sting	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	notwithstanding	notwithstand	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **drive** | past | flies *= fly* | thousands *= thousand* |  |  |  | away *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme they=Trajectory |
| 2 | **sting** | past | the flies | thousands *= thousand* |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus they=Experiencer |
| 3 | **notwithstand** | gerund | the flies *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | 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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