---
title: As he stood there holding it in the open palm of his hand, a bird su… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: As he stood there holding it in the open palm of his hand, a bird suddenly swooped down, picked the stone up in its beak and flew away with it. Who acts: Prince, bird. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 25, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 25, sentence 83

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
As he stood there holding it in the open palm of his hand, a bird suddenly swooped down, picked the stone up in its beak and flew away with it.

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**Who acts:** Prince, bird · **What happens:** stand, hold, swoop down, pick up, fly away · **To what, where:** cornelian, open palm, stone, beak

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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, bird), 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:pg128:2097`): 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:pg128:25:83
# text = As he stood there holding it in the open palm of his hand, a bird suddenly swooped down, picked the stone up in its beak and flew away with it.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	_
4	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
5	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	palm	palm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
17	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	swooped	swoop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	down	down	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
24	up	up	ADP	RP	_	21	compound:prt	_	_
25	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	beak	beak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
29	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
30	away	away	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
31	with	with	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	obl	_	_
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | Prince |  |  | there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hold** | gerund | Prince *not said here* | cornelian |  | the open palm of Prince's hand |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent it=Theme in palm=Location |
| 3 | **swoop down** | past | a bird |  |  |  |  | suddenly *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **pick up** | past | a bird *not said here* | the stone |  | cornelian's beak |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stone=Topic |
| 5 | **fly away** | past | a bird *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with cornelian; away *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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**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.

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