---
title: The merchant and the three old men began to weep and groan. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: The merchant and the three old men began to weep and groan. 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 71

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The merchant and the three old men began to weep and groan.

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**Who acts:** merchant · **What happens:** begin, weep, groan

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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:pg128:2:71
# text = The merchant and the three old men began to weep and groan.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	_
8	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	weep	weep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	groan	groan	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | the merchant and the three old men |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **weep** | to-infinitive | the merchant and the three old men *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **groan** | infinitive | the merchant and the three old men *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «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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