---
title: "I ask you for a year's grace," replied the merchant. " — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "I ask you for a year's grace," replied the merchant. " Who acts: merchant. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/2/37/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Arabian Nights Entertainments](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/) / [Opening, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/2/) / 37

# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 2, sentence 37

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"I ask you for a year's grace," replied the merchant. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** merchant · **What happens:** ask, reply · **To what, where:** you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg128:2:37
# text = "I ask you for a year's grace," replied the merchant. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	's	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	grace	grace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
12	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | present | the merchant *= merchant* |  | you |  |  | for a year's grace | vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP that S»: agent=Agent you=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the merchant |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/2/36/)
- next →: [sentence 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/2/38/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/2/)