---
title: "Tell us, I pray you," said his wife, "what has happened." — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "Tell us, I pray you," said his wife, "what has happened." Who acts: wife. 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 43

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"Tell us, I pray you," said his wife, "what has happened."

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** tell, pray, say, happen · **To what, where:** us, you · **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 (wife), 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:pg128:2:43
# text = "Tell us, I pray you," said his wife, "what has happened."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
3	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	pray	pray	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	nsubj	_	_
16	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | us |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent we=Recipient |
| 2 | **pray** *in a quote* | present | merchant's wife *= wife* | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | merchant's wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **happen** *in a quote* | present · perfect | merchant's wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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