---
title: Flies buzzed round her and ate her up, just as though they were pier… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Flies buzzed round her and ate her up, just as though they were piercing her with needles. Who acts: Flies. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 13, sentence 85

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Flies buzzed round her and ate her up, just as though they were piercing her with needles.

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**Who acts:** Flies · **What happens:** buzz, eat up, pierce · **To what, where:** merchant

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 13. 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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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg74064:13:90
# text = Flies buzzed round her and ate her up, just as though they were piercing her with needles.
1	Flies	fly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	buzzed	buzz	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	round	round	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	up	up	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	just	just	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	as	as	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
12	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	piercing	pierce	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
16	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	needles	needle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **buzz** | past | Flies |  |  |  |  | round merchant | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **eat up** | past | Flies *not said here* | merchant |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Patient |
| 3 | **pierce** | past · progressive | Flies *= fly* | merchant |  |  |  | with needles | vn poke-19-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent she=Patient with needle=Instrument |

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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 grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Project Gutenberg book 74064 (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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