---
title: Butterflies fluttered around her, and close by were several ant-hill… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Butterflies fluttered around her, and close by were several ant-hills, each with its hundreds of busy little creatures moving quickly to and fro. Who acts: Butterflies, busy little creatures. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 4,
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 4, sentence 66

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Butterflies fluttered around her, and close by were several ant-hills, each with its hundreds of busy little creatures moving quickly to and fro.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Butterflies, busy little creatures · **What happens:** flutter, be, move, fro

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Butterflies, busy little creatures), 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:pg27200:86:66
# text = Butterflies fluttered around her, and close by were several ant-hills, each with its hundreds of busy little creatures moving quickly to and fro.
1	Butterflies	butterfly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	fluttered	flutter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	around	around	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
8	by	by	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
10	several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
11	ant	ant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	hills	hill	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	13	appos	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	hundreds	hundred	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nmod	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
21	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	creatures	creature	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	_
23	moving	move	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	22	acl	_	_
24	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
25	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	obl	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	fro	fro	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **flutter** | past | Butterflies |  |  |  |  | around animal | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme around she=Location |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | by several ant hills | tree rules |
| 3 | **move** | gerund | busy little creatures *not said here* |  |  |  |  | quickly *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **fro** | infinitive | busy little creatures *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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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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