---
title: The princess asked what they might be worth. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: The princess asked what they might be worth. Who acts: princess, olives. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 27, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 27, sentence 8

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The princess asked what they might be worth.

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**Who acts:** princess, olives · **What happens:** ask, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (princess, olives), 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:pg128:27:8
# text = The princess asked what they might be worth.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	obj	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
8	worth	worth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | might | olives *= olive* |  |  |  |  | worth *property* | 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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