---
title: "Sire," replied the captain, "the merchant is very poor. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "Sire," replied the captain, "the merchant is very poor. Who acts: Sire, merchant. 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 9

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"Sire," replied the captain, "the merchant is very poor.

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**Who acts:** Sire, merchant · **What happens:** reply, be · **To what, where:** captain · **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 (Sire, merchant), 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:pg128:27:9
# text = "Sire," replied the captain, "the merchant is very poor.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Sire	sire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	captain	captain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	very	very	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Sire | the captain |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent captain=Topic |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | the merchant |  |  |  |  | poor *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.

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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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