---
title: Be she fair or frightful, clever or stupid, good or bad, I must marr… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Be she fair or frightful, clever or stupid, good or bad, I must marry her, and am left no choice in the matter. Who acts: sovereign, I. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/22/103/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 22, sentence 103

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Be she fair or frightful, clever or stupid, good or bad, I must marry her, and am left no choice in the matter.

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**Who acts:** sovereign, I · **What happens:** be, marry, leave · **To what, where:** sovereign, choice, matter

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sovereign, I), 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:pg128:22:103
# text = Be she fair or frightful, clever or stupid, good or bad, I must marry her, and am left no choice in the matter.
1	Be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	cop	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	fair	fair	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	csubj	_	_
4	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	frightful	frightful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	stupid	stupid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	_
12	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
18	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux:pass	_	_
22	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	advcl	_	_
23	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	24	det	_	_
24	choice	choice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | infinitive | sovereign |  |  |  |  | fair *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | sovereign *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **marry** | must | I | sovereign |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Patient |
| 4 | **leave** | present · passive | I *not said here* | no choice |  | the matter |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: choice=Theme in matter=Location |

<!-- .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.

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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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