---
title: Indeed, the sailors assured me that often at night the playing of ti… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Indeed, the sailors assured me that often at night the playing of timbals could be heard upon it. Who acts: sailors, timbals. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/13/59/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Arabian Nights Entertainments](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/) / [Opening, part 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/13/) / 59

# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 13, sentence 59

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Indeed, the sailors assured me that often at night the playing of timbals could be heard upon it.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sailors, timbals · **What happens:** assure, hear, play · **To what, where:** me, playing

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sailors, timbals), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg128:13:59
# text = Indeed, the sailors assured me that often at night the playing of timbals could be heard upon it.
1	Indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	sailors	sailor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	assured	assure	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	obj	_	_
8	often	often	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	playing	playing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	timbals	timbal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	ccomp	_	_
18	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **assure** | past | the sailors |  | me |  |  | indeed *property* | vn advise-37.9 «NP V NP.recipient that S»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **hear** | could · passive |  | the playing of timbals |  |  | night | upon Sailor; often *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **play** |  | timbals |  |  |  |  |  | nom playing «act intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 58](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/13/58/)
- next →: [sentence 60](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/13/60/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/13/)