---
title: Sire, there was once upon a time a merchant who possessed great weal… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Sire, there was once upon a time a merchant who possessed great wealth, in land and merchandise, as well as in ready money. Who acts: Sire, merchant. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/1/112/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 1, sentence 112

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Sire, there was once upon a time a merchant who possessed great wealth, in land and merchandise, as well as in ready money.

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**Who acts:** Sire, merchant · **What happens:** be, possess · **To what, where:** great wealth, land

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sire, merchant), 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:pg128:1:112
# text = Sire, there was once upon a time a merchant who possessed great wealth, in land and merchandise, as well as in ready money.
1	Sire	sire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
3	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	4	advmod	_	_
6	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	appos	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	possessed	possess	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	wealth	wealth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	merchandise	merchandise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
21	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	26	cc	_	_
22	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	21	fixed	_	_
23	as	as	ADP	IN	_	21	fixed	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	money	money	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Sire |  |  |  | upon a time |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **possess** | past | a merchant | great wealth |  | land and merchandise |  |  | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot wealth=Theme |

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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 Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 128 (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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