---
title: While there I heard a slave being offered for 4,000 pieces. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: While there I heard a slave being offered for 4,000 pieces. Who acts: I. 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/pg128/29/27/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 29, sentence 27

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While there I heard a slave being offered for 4,000 pieces.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** hear, offer · **To what, where:** slave · **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 (I), 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:pg128:29:27
# text = While there I heard a slave being offered for 4,000 pieces.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	2	mark	_	_
2	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advcl	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	slave	slave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj:pass	_	_
7	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	offered	offer	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	ccomp	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	4,000	4,000	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **offer** | gerund · passive |  | a slave |  |  |  | for 4,000 pieces *goal* | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: subject=Theme for piece=Goal |

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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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