---
title: "But," said the merchant, "how can I have killed your son? — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "But," said the merchant, "how can I have killed your son? 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.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 2, sentence 6

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"But," said the merchant, "how can I have killed your son?

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**Who acts:** merchant · **What happens:** say, kill · **To what, where:** merchant, son · **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 (merchant), 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:pg128:2:6
# text = "But," said the merchant, "how can I have killed your son?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux	_	_
14	killed	kill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	ccomp	_	_
15	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the merchant |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **kill** *in a quote* | can · perfect · passive |  | the merchant *= merchant* | your son |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Experiencer son=Result |

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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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