---
title: "He tried to rob me," replied the merchant, "and very nearly choked… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "He tried to rob me," replied the merchant, "and very nearly choked me." Who acts: policeman, merchant. 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 78

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"He tried to rob me," replied the merchant, "and very nearly choked me."

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**Who acts:** policeman, merchant · **What happens:** try, rob, reply, choke · **To what, where:** merchant · **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 (policeman, merchant), 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:pg128:19:78
# text = "He tried to rob me," replied the merchant, "and very nearly choked me."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	rob	rob	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
9	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	very	very	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
16	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	choked	choke	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
18	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** *in a quote* | past | policeman |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **rob** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | policeman *not said here* | the merchant *= merchant* |  |  |  |  | vn cheat-10.6.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Source |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the merchant |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **choke** *in a quote* | past | the merchant *not said here* |  | the merchant *= merchant* |  |  | nearly *property* | vn fill-9.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme i=Destination |

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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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