---
title: “Listen! listen! said the mermaid to the prince, who was lying stret… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Listen! listen! said the mermaid to the prince, who was lying stretched on a bed of seaweeds at the bottom of the sea. Who acts: prince. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 18, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 18, sentence 96

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“Listen! listen! said the mermaid to the prince, who was lying stretched on a bed of seaweeds at the bottom of the sea.

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**Who acts:** prince · **What happens:** listen, say, lie, stretch · **To what, where:** mermaid, bed · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince), 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:pg3282:18:96
# text = “Listen! listen! said the mermaid to the prince, who was lying stretched on a bed of seaweeds at the bottom of the sea.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	mermaid	mermaid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	conj	_	_
16	stretched	stretch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	xcomp	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	seaweeds	seaweed	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **listen** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **listen** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: express* *in a quote* | past |  | the mermaid |  |  |  | to the prince | tree rules |
| 4 | **lie** *in a quote* | past · progressive | the prince |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **stretch** *in a quote* | participle | the prince *not said here* |  |  | a bed of seaweeds |  | at the bottom of the sea | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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