---
title: Then the merchants, scaring away the parent birds with shouts and ou… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the merchants, scaring away the parent birds with shouts and outcries, would secure their treasures. Who acts: merchants, parent birds. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/14/40/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 14, sentence 40

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Then the merchants, scaring away the parent birds with shouts and outcries, would secure their treasures.

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**Who acts:** merchants, parent birds · **What happens:** scare away, shout, secure, treasure · **To what, where:** parent birds, treasures

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (merchants, parent birds), 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:pg128:14:40
# text = Then the merchants, scaring away the parent birds with shouts and outcries, would secure their treasures.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	merchants	merchant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	scaring	scare	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	acl	_	_
6	away	away	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	parent	parent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	shouts	shout	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	outcries	outcry	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
15	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	secure	secure	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	treasures	treasure	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **scare away** | gerund | the merchants *not said here* | the parent birds and outcries |  |  |  | away *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus bird=Experiencer |
| 2 | **shout** *speech: express* | present | the parent birds and outcries *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **secure** | would | the merchants | merchants's treasures |  |  |  |  | vn ensure-99 «NP V NP»: agent=Precondition treasure=Theme |
| 4 | **treasure** |  | merchants *= merchant* |  |  |  |  |  | nom treasure «possession transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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