---
title: The better to examine the stone the prince stepped to the open doorw… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: The better to examine the stone the prince stepped to the open doorway of the tent. Who acts: prince. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 25, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 25, sentence 82

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The better to examine the stone the prince stepped to the open doorway of the tent.

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**Who acts:** prince · **What happens:** examine, step · **To what, where:** stone

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince), 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:pg128:25:82
# text = The better to examine the stone the prince stepped to the open doorway of the tent.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	examine	examine	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	stepped	step	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	doorway	doorway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	tent	tent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **examine** | to-infinitive |  | the stone |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stone=Theme |
| 2 | **step** | past | the prince | the stone *not said here* |  |  |  | to the open doorway of the tent | tree rules |

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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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