---
title: When she drew near the boat he saw that she was far more beautiful t… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When she drew near the boat he saw that she was far more beautiful than any mortal he had ever beheld. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/52/69/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Golden Mermaid](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/52/) / 69

# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Mermaid, sentence 69

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When she drew near the boat he saw that she was far more beautiful than any mortal he had ever beheld.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** mermaid, mortal · **What happens:** draw, see, be, behold · **To what, where:** boat, mortal · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:52:69
# text = When she drew near the boat he saw that she was far more beautiful than any mortal he had ever beheld.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	drew	draw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
4	near	near	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	boat	boat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	13	advmod	_	_
13	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	14	advmod	_	_
14	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	ccomp	_	_
15	than	than	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	17	det	_	_
17	mortal	mortal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	21	advmod	_	_
21	beheld	behold	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	17	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **draw** | past | mermaid |  |  | the boat |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **see** | past | mortal |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is** | past | mermaid |  |  |  |  | than any mortal; beautiful *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **behold** | past · perfect | mortal | any mortal *not said here* |  |  | ever |  | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer mortal=Stimulus |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 68](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/52/68/)
- next →: [sentence 70](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/52/70/)
- ↑ back to [The Golden Mermaid](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/52/)