---
title: "There was on board my ship," he replied, "a merchant of Bagdad name… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "There was on board my ship," he replied, "a merchant of Bagdad named Sindbad. Who acts: captain, merchant. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 13, sentence 65

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"There was on board my ship," he replied, "a merchant of Bagdad named Sindbad.

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**Who acts:** captain, merchant · **What happens:** be, name · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (captain, merchant), 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:pg128:13:65
# text = "There was on board my ship," he replied, "a merchant of Bagdad named Sindbad.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	board	board	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	Bagdad	Bagdad	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
18	named	name	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
19	Sindbad	Sindbad	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *speech: assert* | past | captain |  |  |  |  | reply *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **name** *in a quote* | past | a merchant of Bagdad |  |  |  |  |  | vn appoint-29.1 «NP V NP»: agent=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.

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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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