---
title: But the flies, who didn’t understand English, refused to let themsel… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the flies, who didn’t understand English, refused to let themselves be warned off, and returned again in even greater numbers. Who acts: flies. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Brave Little Tailor, sentence 13

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But the flies, who didn’t understand English, refused to let themselves be warned off, and returned again in even greater numbers.

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**Who acts:** flies · **What happens:** not understand, refuse, not let, warn off, return · **To what, where:** English, flies, greater numbers

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor. 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:pg503:42:13
# text = But the flies, who didn’t understand English, refused to let themselves be warned off, and returned again in even greater numbers.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	flies	fly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
6	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
9	English	English	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
11	refused	refuse	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	13	obj	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	warned	warn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	xcomp	_	_
17	off	off	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
21	again	again	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	even	even	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	greater	great	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	25	amod	_	_
25	numbers	number	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **understand** | past · do-support | the flies | English |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer english=Stimulus |
| 2 | **refuse** | past | the flies |  |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **let** | to-infinitive | the flies *not said here* | flies *= fly* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **warn off** *speech: warn* | infinitive · passive | flies *= fly* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn advise-37.9-1 «NP V PP.topic» |
| 5 | **return** | past | the flies *not said here* |  |  | greater numbers | again |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «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:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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