---
title: "If only," she said, "I had an instrument upon which I might play." — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "If only," she said, "I had an instrument upon which I might play." Who acts: saloon. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 29, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/29/107/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 29, sentence 107

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"If only," she said, "I had an instrument upon which I might play."

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**Who acts:** saloon · **What happens:** say, have, play · **To what, where:** instrument · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (saloon), 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:pg128:29:107
# text = "If only," she said, "I had an instrument upon which I might play."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
12	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	instrument	instrument	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	obl	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | saloon |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | past | saloon | a instrument |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent instrument=Patient |
| 3 | **play** *in a quote* | might | saloon |  |  |  |  | upon a instrument | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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