---
title: “If he heeds only the words of men she will remain a flower for ever. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “If he heeds only the words of men she will remain a flower for ever. Who acts: bridegroom, thrush. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, sentence 87

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“If he heeds only the words of men she will remain a flower for ever.

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**Who acts:** bridegroom, thrush · **What happens:** heed, remain, word · **To what, where:** words, flower, men

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bridegroom, thrush), 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:pg503:26:87
# text = “If he heeds only the words of men she will remain a flower for ever.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heeds	heed	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	remain	remain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl:relcl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	flower	flower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **heed** *in a quote* | present | bridegroom | the words of men |  |  |  |  | vn abide\_by-93.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Theme |
| 2 | **remain** *in a quote* | future | thrush | a flower |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme flower=Attribute |
| 3 | **word** *in a quote* |  |  | men |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: of=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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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