---
title: "So, captain," said I, "the merchant who owned those bales was calle… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "So, captain," said I, "the merchant who owned those bales was called Sindbad?" Who acts: captain, merchant. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 15, sentence 60

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"So, captain," said I, "the merchant who owned those bales was called Sindbad?"

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**Who acts:** captain, merchant · **What happens:** say, own, call · **To what, where:** bales, merchant · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 15. 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:pg128:15:60
# text = "So, captain," said I, "the merchant who owned those bales was called Sindbad?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	So	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	captain	captain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	owned	own	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
15	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	bales	bale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	conj	_	_
19	Sindbad	Sindbad	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | captain |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **own** *in a quote* | past | the merchant | that bales |  |  |  |  | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot bale=Theme |
| 3 | **call** *in a quote* | past · passive |  | the merchant |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |

<!-- .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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