---
title: Why should I not build a raft and trust myself to its swiftly flowin… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Why should I not build a raft and trust myself to its swiftly flowing waters? Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 17, sentence 53

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Why should I not build a raft and trust myself to its swiftly flowing waters?

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** not build, flow · **To what, where:** raft

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 17. 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.

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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:pg128:17:53
# text = Why should I not build a raft and trust myself to its swiftly flowing waters?
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
2	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	build	build	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	raft	raft	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	trust	trust	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
10	myself	myself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Emp|Reflex=Yes	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
12	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
13	swiftly	swiftly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	flowing	flow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	amod	_	_
15	waters	water	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **build** | should | I | a raft and trust |  |  |  | to trust's swiftly flowing waters; myself *obl:unmarked* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent raft=Product |
| 2 | **flow** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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