---
title: Speak to me more civilly," he said, "before I kill you." — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Speak to me more civilly," he said, "before I kill you." Who acts: you, genius, I. 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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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 3, sentence 89

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Speak to me more civilly," he said, "before I kill you."

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**Who acts:** you, genius, I · **What happens:** speak, say, kill · **To what, where:** me, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (you, genius, 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:pg128:3:89
# text = Speak to me more civilly," he said, "before I kill you."
1	Speak	speak	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	to	to	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	obl	_	_
4	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	5	advmod	_	_
5	civilly	civilly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	kill	kill	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | imperative | you *not said here* |  | me |  |  | civilly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | genius |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **kill** | present | I | you |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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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