---
title: Like a swarm of midges, a host of tiny headless creatures seemed to… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Like a swarm of midges, a host of tiny headless creatures seemed to spring straight out of the ground, and every one was armed with a club. Who acts: host, one. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 103

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Like a swarm of midges, a host of tiny headless creatures seemed to spring straight out of the ground, and every one was armed with a club.

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**Who acts:** host, one · **What happens:** seem, spring, be · **To what, where:** ground

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (host, one), 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:pg641:33:103
# text = Like a swarm of midges, a host of tiny headless creatures seemed to spring straight out of the ground, and every one was armed with a club.
1	Like	like	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	swarm	swarm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	midges	midge	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	host	host	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
11	headless	headless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	creatures	creature	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
13	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	spring	spring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	straight	straight	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
23	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	24	det	_	_
24	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
25	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
26	armed	armed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	_
27	with	with	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	club	club	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | a host of tiny headless creatures |  |  |  |  | like a swarm of midges | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 2 | **spring** | to-infinitive | a host of tiny headless creatures *not said here* |  |  | the ground |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme out ground=Trajectory |
| 3 | **is** | past | every one |  |  |  |  | with a club; armed *property* | 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:** «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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