---
title: I cannot believe it unless I see you do the thing." — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: I cannot believe it unless I see you do the thing." Who acts: I, you. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 3, 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/pg128/3/114/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 3, sentence 114

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I cannot believe it unless I see you do the thing."

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**Who acts:** I, you · **What happens:** not believe, see, do · **To what, where:** body, thing

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you), 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:pg128:3:114
# text = I cannot believe it unless I see you do the thing."
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	unless	unless	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **believe** | can | I | body |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |
| 2 | **see** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **do** | present | you | the thing |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Eventuality |

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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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