---
title: "Why," cried she, "was it you my father wished me to marry? — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "Why," cried she, "was it you my father wished me to marry? Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 23, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 23, sentence 100

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"Why," cried she, "was it you my father wished me to marry?

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** cry, be, wish, marry · **To what, where:** princess, admiration, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg128:23:100
# text = "Why," cried she, "was it you my father wished me to marry?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | past |  | princess |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | past |  | admiration |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **wish** *in a quote* | past | you | me |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot i=Theme |
| 4 | **marry** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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