---
title: As he hesitated the Mermaid, who guessed his thoughts, said to him: — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As he hesitated the Mermaid, who guessed his thoughts, said to him: Who acts: King, Mermaid. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3, sentence 25

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As he hesitated the Mermaid, who guessed his thoughts, said to him:

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**Who acts:** King, Mermaid · **What happens:** hesitate, guess, say, think · **To what, where:** Mermaid, thoughts, King · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, Mermaid), 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:pg503:7:25
# text = As he hesitated the Mermaid, who guessed his thoughts, said to him:
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	hesitated	hesitate	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	Mermaid	Mermaid	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
8	guessed	guess	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	thoughts	thought	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hesitate** | past | King | the Mermaid |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **guess** | past | the Mermaid | King's thoughts |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thought=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | King |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient |
| 4 | **think** |  | King |  |  |  |  |  | nom thought «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

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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 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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