---
title: Then, finding he was quite dead, a cold fear took possession of him. " — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Then, finding he was quite dead, a cold fear took possession of him. " Who acts: cold fear, thief. 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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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 19, sentence 64

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Then, finding he was quite dead, a cold fear took possession of him. "

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**Who acts:** cold fear, thief · **What happens:** find, be, take, possess · **To what, where:** possession, thief · **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 (cold fear, thief), 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:pg128:19:64
# text = Then, finding he was quite dead, a cold fear took possession of him. "
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	finding	find	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	cold	cold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	fear	fear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	possession	possession	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** | gerund | a cold fear *not said here* |  |  |  | then |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | thief |  |  |  |  | dead *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **take** | past | a cold fear | possession of thief |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent possession=Theme |
| 4 | **possess** |  |  | thief |  |  |  |  | nom possession «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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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