---
title: When we had loaded our elephant with as many tusks as it could carry… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: When we had loaded our elephant with as many tusks as it could carry and were on our way back to the city, he said: Who acts: we, curiosity, city. 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/pg128/18/93/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 18, sentence 93

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When we had loaded our elephant with as many tusks as it could carry and were on our way back to the city, he said:

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** we, curiosity, city · **What happens:** load, carry, be, say · **To what, where:** elephant, way · **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 (we, curiosity, city), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg128:18:93
# text = When we had loaded our elephant with as many tusks as it could carry and were on our way back to the city, he said:
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	4	mark	_	_
2	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	loaded	load	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	26	advcl	_	_
5	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	elephant	elephant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	as	as	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	tusks	tusk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	_
20	back	back	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
25	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	26	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **load** | past · perfect | we |  | our elephant |  |  | with many tusks | vn spray-9.7-2 «NP V NP.destination PP.theme»: agent=Agent elephant=Destination with tusk=Theme |
| 2 | **carry** | could | curiosity |  |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | curiosity *not said here* |  |  | our way |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | city |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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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