---
title: Pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there wa… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: Pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the mermaids calling to the moon. Who acts: Pale rays, mermaids. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter VIII. THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON, wit
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter VIII. THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON, sentence 294

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Pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the mermaids calling to the moon.

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**Who acts:** Pale rays, mermaids · **What happens:** tiptoe, be, hear, call, ray · **To what, where:** waters, sound, moon, light · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter VIII. THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Pale rays, mermaids), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg16:1343`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg16:9:294
# text = Pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the mermaids calling to the moon.
1	Pale	pale	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	rays	ray	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	tiptoed	tiptoe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	across	across	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	waters	water	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
11	by	by	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	15	advmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	fixed	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	11	fixed	_	_
14	there	there	PRON	EX	_	15	expl	_	_
15	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	xcomp	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
21	at	at	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	25	advmod	_	_
22	once	once	ADV	RB	_	21	fixed	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	25	advmod	_	_
25	musical	musical	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	29	advmod	_	_
29	melancholy	melancholy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	conj	_	_
30	in	in	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	_
33	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	35	punct	_	_
34	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	mermaids	mermaid	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	appos	_	_
36	calling	call	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	35	acl	_	_
37	to	to	ADP	IN	_	39	case	_	_
38	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	39	det	_	_
39	moon	moon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	obl	_	_
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tiptoe** | past | Pale rays of light |  |  | the waters |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme across water=Trajectory |
| 2 | **be** | past | Pale rays of light *not said here* |  |  | there |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **hear** | to-infinitive · passive |  | a sound |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: subject=Stimulus |
| 4 | **call** | gerund | the mermaids *not said here* |  | the moon |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to moon=Recipient |
| 5 | **ray** |  |  | light |  |  |  |  | nom ray «phenomenon transitive»: of=patient |

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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:** «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Project Gutenberg book 16 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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