---
title: Never having been in Bagdad before, they did not know where to seek… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Never having been in Bagdad before, they did not know where to seek a lodging. Who acts: neighbours. 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/pg128/29/49/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 29, sentence 49

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Never having been in Bagdad before, they did not know where to seek a lodging.

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**Who acts:** neighbours · **What happens:** not have, not know, seek · **To what, where:** lodging · **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 (neighbours), 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:pg128:29:49
# text = Never having been in Bagdad before, they did not know where to seek a lodging.
1	Never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
2	having	have	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
3	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	xcomp	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	Bagdad	Bagdad	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
6	before	before	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
12	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	14	advmod	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	seek	seek	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	lodging	lodging	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **have** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | neighbours *= neighbour* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **seek** | to-infinitive |  | a lodging |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lodging=Theme |

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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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