---
title: "This, Sire, is the story which I was obliged to tell to satisfy you… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "This, Sire, is the story which I was obliged to tell to satisfy your highness. Who acts: Sire. 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/pg128/22/38/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 22, sentence 38

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"This, Sire, is the story which I was obliged to tell to satisfy your highness.

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**Who acts:** Sire · **What happens:** be, oblige, tell, satisfy · **To what, where:** story, highness · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Sire), 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:pg128:22:38
# text = "This, Sire, is the story which I was obliged to tell to satisfy your highness.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	Sire	Sire	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	obliged	oblige	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl:relcl	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	satisfy	satisfy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	highness	highness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | Sire | the story |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **oblige** *in a quote* | past · passive |  | the story |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Patient clause=Result |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **satisfy** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | your highness |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus highness=Experiencer |

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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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