---
title: The mermaid called out to him to stand still, but he refused to list… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The mermaid called out to him to stand still, but he refused to listen to her and never paused till he reached the sand of the shore. Who acts: mermaid, mortal. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Mermaid, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Mermaid, sentence 67

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The mermaid called out to him to stand still, but he refused to listen to her and never paused till he reached the sand of the shore.

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**Who acts:** mermaid, mortal · **What happens:** call out, stand, refuse, not listen, not pause, reach · **To what, where:** mortal, mermaid, sand

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Mermaid. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mermaid, mortal), 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:pg7277:3408`): 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:pg7277:52:67
# text = The mermaid called out to him to stand still, but he refused to listen to her and never paused till he reached the sand of the shore.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	mermaid	mermaid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	out	out	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	stand	stand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
9	still	still	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	refused	refuse	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	paused	pause	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
21	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
22	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	shore	shore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call out** *speech: assert* | past | the mermaid |  | mortal |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient |
| 2 | **stand** | to-infinitive | the mermaid *not said here* |  |  |  | still |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **refuse** | past | mortal |  |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **listen** | to-infinitive | mortal *not said here* |  | mermaid |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to she=Theme |
| 5 | **not** **pause** | past | mortal *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn linger-53.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **reach** | past | mortal | the sand of the shore |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent sand=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:** 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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