---
title: The poor man fulfilled his task with reluctance, but there was no es… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: The poor man fulfilled his task with reluctance, but there was no escape, and every day saw a girl married and a wife dead. Who acts: poor man, escape, day, Schahriar. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 1, sentence 53

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The poor man fulfilled his task with reluctance, but there was no escape, and every day saw a girl married and a wife dead.

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**Who acts:** poor man, escape, day, Schahriar · **What happens:** fulfil, be, see, marry, task · **To what, where:** task, girl

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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 (poor man, escape, day, Schahriar), 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:pg128:1:53
# text = The poor man fulfilled his task with reluctance, but there was no escape, and every day saw a girl married and a wife dead.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	fulfilled	fulfil	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	reluctance	reluctance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	12	expl	_	_
12	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
13	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
14	escape	escape	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	18	det	_	_
18	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	married	marry	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	21	acl	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
26	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fulfil** | past | the poor man | Schahriar's task |  |  |  | with reluctance | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | past | no escape |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **see** | past | every day | a girl |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer girl=Stimulus |
| 4 | **marry** | participle |  | a girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **task** |  | Schahriar |  |  |  |  |  | nom task «act 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 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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