---
title: But instead of embracing them he began to weep so bitterly that they… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: But instead of embracing them he began to weep so bitterly that they soon guessed that something terrible was the matter. Who acts: merchant, wife, something. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/2/42/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 2, sentence 42

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But instead of embracing them he began to weep so bitterly that they soon guessed that something terrible was the matter.

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**Who acts:** merchant, wife, something · **What happens:** embrace, begin, weep, guess, be · **To what, where:** wife, matter

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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, wife, something), 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:pg128:2:42
# text = But instead of embracing them he began to weep so bitterly that they soon guessed that something terrible was the matter.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	instead	instead	ADV	RB	ExtPos=SCONJ	4	mark	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	2	fixed	_	_
4	embracing	embrace	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	weep	weep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	so	so	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	bitterly	bitterly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	15	advmod	_	_
15	guessed	guess	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
17	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	21	nsubj	_	_
18	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **embrace** | gerund | merchant *not said here* | wife |  |  |  |  | vn marry-36.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **begin** | past | merchant |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **weep** | to-infinitive | merchant *not said here* |  |  |  |  | bitterly *property* | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **guess** | past | wife |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is a** | past | something | the matter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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