---
title: "What!" said the king; "is that wretch still alive? — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "What!" said the king; "is that wretch still alive? Who acts: wretch. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 30, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/30/67/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Arabian Nights Entertainments](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/) / [Opening, part 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/30/) / 67

# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 30, sentence 67

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"What!" said the king; "is that wretch still alive?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** wretch · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** king, wretch · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wretch), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg128:30:67
# text = "What!" said the king; "is that wretch still alive?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj:outer	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	wretch	wretch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
13	still	still	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | that wretch | the king |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent king=Topic |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | that wretch |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 66](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/30/66/)
- next →: [sentence 68](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/30/68/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/30/)