---
title: Although they were so small, yet there were such numbers of them and… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Although they were so small, yet there were such numbers of them and they struck so hard that even a strong man could do nothing against them. Who acts: creatures, such numbers, strong man. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs, with its dependency tree and the pr
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/33/104/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 104

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Although they were so small, yet there were such numbers of them and they struck so hard that even a strong man could do nothing against them.

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**Who acts:** creatures, such numbers, strong man · **What happens:** be, strike, do · **To what, where:** nothing

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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 (creatures, such numbers, strong man), 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:pg641:33:104
# text = Although they were so small, yet there were such numbers of them and they struck so hard that even a strong man could do nothing against them.
1	Although	although	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	yet	yet	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	_
9	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
10	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	numbers	number	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nmod	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	struck	strike	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
20	even	even	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
24	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	_
26	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	25	obj	_	_
27	against	against	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | creatures *= creature* |  |  |  |  | small *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | past | such numbers of creatures |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **strike** | past | creatures *= creature* |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **do** | could | a strong man | nothing |  |  |  | against creatures *= creature* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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