---
title: It tried hard to break its cord and come to me. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: It tried hard to break its cord and come to me. Who acts: steward. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 2, sentence 105

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It tried hard to break its cord and come to me.

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**Who acts:** steward · **What happens:** try, break, come · **To what, where:** cord, me

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (steward), 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:pg128:2:105
# text = It tried hard to break its cord and come to me.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	cord	cord	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | steward |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP-PRO-ARB»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **break** | to-infinitive | steward *not said here* | steward's cord |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer cord=Patient |
| 3 | **come** | infinitive | steward *not said here* |  | me |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to i=Initial\_Location |

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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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