---
title: They were written by a monkey in our presence." — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: They were written by a monkey in our presence." Who acts: monkey. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 10, sentence 28

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They were written by a monkey in our presence."

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**Who acts:** monkey · **What happens:** write · **To what, where:** officials, presence

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (monkey), 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:pg128:10:28
# text = They were written by a monkey in our presence."
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	written	write	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	by	by	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	monkey	monkey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	presence	presence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write** | past · passive | a monkey | officials *= official* |  | our presence |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent subject=Theme in presence=Destination |

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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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