---
title: "Alas!" answered her husband, "I have only a year to live." — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "Alas!" answered her husband, "I have only a year to live." Who acts: husband. 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/pg128/2/44/)

<!-- 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/) / 44

# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 2, sentence 44

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Alas!" answered her husband, "I have only a year to live."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** husband · **What happens:** answer, have, live · **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 (husband), 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:pg128:2:44
# text = "Alas!" answered her husband, "I have only a year to live."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
12	only	only	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | sister's husband |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | present | sister's husband *= husband* |  |  |  | year |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **live** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | sister's husband *= husband* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/2/43/)
- next →: [sentence 45](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/2/45/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/2/)