---
title: "But, madam," inquired the Persian, "what harm is there in that?" — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "But, madam," inquired the Persian, "what harm is there in that?" Who acts: madam. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 28, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 28, sentence 39

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"But, madam," inquired the Persian, "what harm is there in that?"

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**Who acts:** madam · **What happens:** inquire, be · **To what, where:** Persian, that · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (madam), 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:pg128:28:39
# text = "But, madam," inquired the Persian, "what harm is there in that?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	madam	madam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	_
7	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Persian	Persian	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	nsubj	_	_
13	harm	harm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	parataxis	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past | madam | the Persian |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent persian=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  | that |  | there *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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