---
title: While she was telling me her story they seem to have carried the sic… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: While she was telling me her story they seem to have carried the sick man to the top of the staircase and then left him there. Who acts: servant, story. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 19, 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/pg128/19/104/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 19, sentence 104

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While she was telling me her story they seem to have carried the sick man to the top of the staircase and then left him there.

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**Who acts:** servant, story · **What happens:** tell, seem, carry, leave · **To what, where:** story, me, sick man, top, hangman · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 19. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (servant, story), 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:pg128:19:104
# text = While she was telling me her story they seem to have carried the sick man to the top of the staircase and then left him there.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	telling	tell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	seem	seem	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
11	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	aux	_	_
12	carried	carry	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	xcomp	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	sick	sick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	staircase	staircase	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
23	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	24	advmod	_	_
24	left	leave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
25	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · progressive | servant | servant's story | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient story=Topic |
| 2 | **seem** | present | story | servant's story *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **carry** | to-infinitive · perfect | story *not said here* | the sick man |  | the top of the staircase |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent man=Theme to top=Destination |
| 4 | **leave** | past | story *not said here* | hangman |  | there | then |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |

<!-- .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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