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title: Then he stripped off his shirt and bade them tie him up so that he c… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then he stripped off his shirt and bade them tie him up so that he could not beat off a single gnat, and the gnats drank their fill of him and flew off again. Who acts: general, shirt, gnats. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 1, with its dependen
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/25/92/)

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 1, sentence 92

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then he stripped off his shirt and bade them tie him up so that he could not beat off a single gnat, and the gnats drank their fill of him and flew off again.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** general, shirt, gnats · **What happens:** strip off, tie up, not beat off, drink, fly off · **To what, where:** general, single gnat, fill

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (general, shirt, gnats), 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:pg29672:25:92
# text = Then he stripped off his shirt and bade them tie him up so that he could not beat off a single gnat, and the gnats drank their fill of him and flew off again.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stripped	strip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	off	off	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	shirt	shirt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	bade	bade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	tie	tie	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	up	up	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
13	so	so	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	18	mark	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	fixed	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	beat	beat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
19	off	off	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	gnat	gnat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	gnats	gnat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	_
27	drank	drink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
28	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	fill	fill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obj	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nmod	_	_
32	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
33	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	conj	_	_
34	off	off	ADP	RP	_	33	compound:prt	_	_
35	again	again	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **strip off** | past | general |  |  |  | then |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **tie up** | present | general's shirt and bade | general |  |  |  |  | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient |
| 3 | **not** **beat off** | could | general | a single gnat |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location gnat=Theme |
| 4 | **drink** | past | the gnats | shirt's fill of general |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fill=Patient |
| 5 | **fly off** | past | the gnats *not said here* |  |  |  | again |  | 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:** «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», Project Gutenberg book 29672 (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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