---
title: And, indeed, even the steps themselves were so narrow and so steep t… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: And, indeed, even the steps themselves were so narrow and so steep that, if the lightest breeze had arisen, I should certainly have been blown into the sea. Who acts: steps, lightest breeze. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 11, with its dependency tree 
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 11, sentence 31

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And, indeed, even the steps themselves were so narrow and so steep that, if the lightest breeze had arisen, I should certainly have been blown into the sea.

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**Who acts:** steps, lightest breeze · **What happens:** be, arise, blow · **To what, where:** I, sea

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (steps, lightest breeze), 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:pg128:960`): 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:pg128:11:31
# text = And, indeed, even the steps themselves were so narrow and so steep that, if the lightest breeze had arisen, I should certainly have been blown into the sea.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
3	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	even	even	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
8	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Emp|Reflex=Yes	7	nmod:unmarked	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	so	so	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	narrow	narrow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	so	so	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	steep	steep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	_
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
17	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	lightest	light	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	20	amod	_	_
20	breeze	breeze	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
21	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	arisen	arise	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	29	advcl	_	_
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
24	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
25	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
26	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
27	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	29	aux	_	_
28	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	29	aux:pass	_	_
29	blown	blow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	advcl	_	_
30	into	into	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	_
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the steps  steps |  |  |  |  | indeed, narrow *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | the steps  steps *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **arise** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | the lightest breeze |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **blow** | should · perfect · passive |  | I |  | the sea |  | certainly *property* | vn build-26.1 «NP V NP.material PP.product»: subject=Material into sea=Product |

<!-- .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 Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 128 (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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