---
title: They called to him to stop, and did all they could to prevent his go… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They called to him to stop, and did all they could to prevent his going further. Who acts: sons, landlord. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Blackbird, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Blackbird, sentence 20

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They called to him to stop, and did all they could to prevent his going further.

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**Who acts:** sons, landlord · **What happens:** call, stop, do, prevent, go · **To what, where:** landlord, all · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Blackbird. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sons, landlord), 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:pg7277:21:20
# text = They called to him to stop, and did all they could to prevent his going further.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	stop	stop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
10	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	obj	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	nmod	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	prevent	prevent	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	advcl	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Gender=Masc|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	going	go	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	ccomp	_	_
17	further	further	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** *speech: assert* | past | sons *= son* |  | landlord |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient |
| 2 | **stop** | to-infinitive | sons *= son* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **do** | past |  | all |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent all=Eventuality |
| 4 | **prevent** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Causer clause=Eventuality |
| 5 | **go** | gerund | landlord |  |  |  |  | further *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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