---
title: When they heard this sad news they were in despair, and wept much. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: When they heard this sad news they were in despair, and wept much. 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 46

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When they heard this sad news they were in despair, and wept much.

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** hear, be, weep · **To what, where:** sad news, despair

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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:pg128:2:46
# text = When they heard this sad news they were in despair, and wept much.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	det	_	_
5	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	despair	despair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	wept	weep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	much	much	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | wife | this sad news and despair |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer news=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** | past | wife |  |  | despair |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **weep** | past | wife *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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