---
title: I was, of course, bound to obey, and not knowing what was to become… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: I was, of course, bound to obey, and not knowing what was to become of me I shaved my beard and eyebrows and put on the dress of a calender. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 11, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 11, sentence 7

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I was, of course, bound to obey, and not knowing what was to become of me I shaved my beard and eyebrows and put on the dress of a calender.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** be, obey, not know, become, shave, put on · **To what, where:** beard, dress · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg128:937`): 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:pg128:11:7
# text = I was, of course, bound to obey, and not knowing what was to become of me I shaved my beard and eyebrows and put on the dress of a calender.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	7	advmod	_	_
5	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	fixed	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	bound	bound	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	obey	obey	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	knowing	know	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	advcl	_	_
14	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
20	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	shaved	shave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
22	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	eyebrows	eyebrow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	conj	_	_
28	on	on	ADP	RP	_	27	compound:prt	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	dress	dress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obj	_	_
31	of	of	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
32	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	calender	calender	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nmod	_	_
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | I |  |  |  |  | bound *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **obey** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn abide\_by-93.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **know** | gerund | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **become** | past |  |  |  |  |  | of me | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **shave** | past | I | my beard and eyebrows |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent beard=Patient |
| 6 | **put on** | past | I *not said here* | the dress of a calender |  |  |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent dress=Goal |

<!-- .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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