---
title: "It was during this interval that the little hunchback, half drunk a… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "It was during this interval that the little hunchback, half drunk already, presented himself before me, singing and playing on his drum. Who acts: little hunchback. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of eve
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/22/33/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Arabian Nights Entertainments](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/) / [Opening, part 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/22/) / 33

# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 22, sentence 33

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"It was during this interval that the little hunchback, half drunk already, presented himself before me, singing and playing on his drum.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** little hunchback · **What happens:** be, present, sing, play · **To what, where:** hunchback, drum

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (little hunchback), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg128:1829`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg128:22:33
# text = "It was during this interval that the little hunchback, half drunk already, presented himself before me, singing and playing on his drum.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	_
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	expl	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	during	during	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	det	_	_
6	interval	interval	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	hunchback	hunchback	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	half	half	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	13	advmod	_	_
13	drunk	drunk	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
14	already	already	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
16	presented	present	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
17	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	16	obj	_	_
18	before	before	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	playing	play	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	conj	_	_
24	on	on	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	drum	drum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | past |  |  |  |  | during this interval |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **present** *in a quote* | past | the little hunchback | hunchback |  |  | before barber |  | vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent himself=Theme |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* *in a quote* | gerund | the little hunchback *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **play** *in a quote* | gerund | the little hunchback *not said here* |  |  | hunchback's drum |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 128 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/22/32/)
- next →: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/22/34/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/22/)