---
title: "Madam, I must confess that I should deceive you were I to declare o… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "Madam, I must confess that I should deceive you were I to declare one to be handsomer than the other. Who acts: Madam, Caschcasch. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 23, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/23/82/)

<!-- 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 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/23/) / 82

# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 23, sentence 82

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Madam, I must confess that I should deceive you were I to declare one to be handsomer than the other.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Madam, Caschcasch · **What happens:** confess, deceive, be, declare · **To what, where:** you, Caschcasch, one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg128:23:82
# text = "Madam, I must confess that I should deceive you were I to declare one to be handsomer than the other.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Madam	madam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	confess	confess	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	deceive	deceive	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	declare	declare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
16	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	obj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
19	handsomer	handsome	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	15	xcomp	_	_
20	than	than	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **confess** *in a quote* | must | Madam |  |  |  |  |  | vn confess-37.10 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **deceive** *in a quote* | should | Caschcasch | you |  |  |  |  | vn trick-59.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Patient |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | past | Caschcasch *not said here* | Caschcasch |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **declare** *speech: other* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Caschcasch *not said here* | one |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Attribute |
| 5 | **is** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Caschcasch *not said here* |  |  |  |  | than the other; handsome *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 81](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/23/81/)
- next →: [sentence 83](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/23/83/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/23/)