---
title: I answered that I was a rich merchant who had been captured by pirat… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: I answered that I was a rich merchant who had been captured by pirates, and therefore I knew no trade. Who acts: I, pirates. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 18, 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/pg128/18/68/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 18, sentence 68

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I answered that I was a rich merchant who had been captured by pirates, and therefore I knew no trade.

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**Who acts:** I, pirates · **What happens:** answer, be, capture, know · **To what, where:** rich merchant, trade · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, pirates), 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:pg128:18:68
# text = I answered that I was a rich merchant who had been captured by pirates, and therefore I knew no trade.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	rich	rich	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	ccomp	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	captured	capture	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl:relcl	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	pirates	pirate	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	therefore	therefore	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
20	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	21	det	_	_
21	trade	trade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past | I | a rich merchant |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **capture** | past · perfect · passive | pirates | a rich merchant |  |  |  |  | vn steal-10.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Theme |
| 4 | **know** | past | I | no trade |  |  |  | therefore *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer trade=Stimulus |

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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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