---
title: But how can he or any one else know what takes place in this house? — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: But how can he or any one else know what takes place in this house? Who acts: Saouy. 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 59

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But how can he or any one else know what takes place in this house?

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**Who acts:** Saouy · **What happens:** know, take · **To what, where:** place, house · **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 (Saouy), 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:pg128:28:59
# text = But how can he or any one else know what takes place in this house?
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
5	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	7	det	_	_
7	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
8	else	else	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	nsubj	_	_
11	takes	take	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
12	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	det	_	_
15	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | can | Saouy |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **take** | present |  | place |  | this house |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent place=Value in house=Location |

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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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