---
title: "I give you my word of honour," answered the merchant, "that I will… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "I give you my word of honour," answered the merchant, "that I will come back without fail." Who acts: merchant, my. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/2/35/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 2, sentence 35

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"I give you my word of honour," answered the merchant, "that I will come back without fail."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** merchant, my · **What happens:** give, answer, come back, word · **To what, where:** word, you, honour · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (merchant, my), 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:pg128:2:35
# text = "I give you my word of honour," answered the merchant, "that I will come back without fail."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	give	give	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	honour	honour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
11	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl:relcl	_	_
20	back	back	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	without	without	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	fail	fail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** *in a quote* | present | the merchant *= merchant* | my word of honour | you |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient word=Theme |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the merchant |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **come back** *in a quote* | future | the merchant |  |  |  |  | without fail | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **word** *in a quote* |  | my | honour |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: poss=agent of=patient |

<!-- .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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