---
title: There would be flies to be watched, slender atoms in yellow gauze th… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There would be flies to be watched, slender atoms in yellow gauze that flew, and filmy specks that flittered, and sturdy, thick-ribbed brutes that pounced like cats and bit like dogs and flew like lightning. Who acts: flies, yellow gauze, filmy specks, ribbed brutes. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/14/35/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 35

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There would be flies to be watched, slender atoms in yellow gauze that flew, and filmy specks that flittered, and sturdy, thick-ribbed brutes that pounced like cats and bit like dogs and flew like lightning.

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**Who acts:** flies, yellow gauze, filmy specks, ribbed brutes · **What happens:** be, watch, fly, flitter, rib, pounce · **To what, where:** slender atoms

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter I. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flies, yellow gauze, filmy specks, ribbed brutes), 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:pg2892:14:35
# text = There would be flies to be watched, slender atoms in yellow gauze that flew, and filmy specks that flittered, and sturdy, thick-ribbed brutes that pounced like cats and bit like dogs and flew like lightning.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	flies	fly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	watched	watch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	slender	slender	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	atoms	atom	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	gauze	gauze	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
14	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
15	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	filmy	filmy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	specks	speck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj	_	_
20	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
21	flittered	flitter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	sturdy	sturdy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
26	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	ribbed	rib	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	29	amod	_	_
29	brutes	brute	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obl	_	_
30	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	31	nsubj	_	_
31	pounced	pounce	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	acl:relcl	_	_
32	like	like	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
33	cats	cat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	obl	_	_
34	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
35	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	conj	_	_
36	like	like	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
37	dogs	dog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	nmod	_	_
38	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
39	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	31	conj	_	_
40	like	like	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
41	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | would | flies |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **watch** | to-infinitive · passive | flies *not said here* | slender atoms in yellow gauze |  |  |  |  | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location» |
| 3 | **fly** | past | yellow gauze |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **flitter** | past | filmy specks |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **rib** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **pounce** | past | ribbed brutes |  |  |  |  | like cats like dogs and bit | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 7 | **fly** | past | ribbed brutes *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like lightning | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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:** «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Project Gutenberg book 2892 (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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- ↑ back to [Chapter I](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/14/)