---
title: "Never have I heard a finer voice, nor the lute better played. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "Never have I heard a finer voice, nor the lute better played. Who acts: Caliph, lute. 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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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 29, sentence 110

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"Never have I heard a finer voice, nor the lute better played.

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**Who acts:** Caliph, lute · **What happens:** not have, hear, play · **To what, where:** finer voice · **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 (Caliph, lute), 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:pg128:29:110
# text = "Never have I heard a finer voice, nor the lute better played.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	finer	finer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	14	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	lute	lute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	14	advmod	_	_
14	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **have** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **hear** *in a quote* | past | Caliph | a finer voice |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer voice=Stimulus |
| 3 | **play** *in a quote* | past | the lute |  |  |  |  | well *property* | 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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