---
title: They soon saw in the distance a thick smoke, like a cloud of dust. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: They soon saw in the distance a thick smoke, like a cloud of dust. Who acts: others. 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 69

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They soon saw in the distance a thick smoke, like a cloud of dust.

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**Who acts:** others · **What happens:** see, cloud · **To what, where:** thick smoke, dust

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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 (others), 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:pg128:2:69
# text = They soon saw in the distance a thick smoke, like a cloud of dust.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	distance	distance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	smoke	smoke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	like	like	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	dust	dust	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | others *= other* | a thick smoke |  |  |  | in the distance; like a cloud of dust; soon *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer smoke=Stimulus |
| 2 | **cloud** |  |  | dust |  |  |  |  | nom cloud «phenomenon transitive»: of=patient |

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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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