---
title: But when the magician came near, Aladdin, seizing his dagger, pierce… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: But when the magician came near, Aladdin, seizing his dagger, pierced him to the heart. Who acts: magician. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 32, 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/pg128/32/106/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 32, sentence 106

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But when the magician came near, Aladdin, seizing his dagger, pierced him to the heart.

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**Who acts:** magician · **What happens:** come, seize, pierce · **To what, where:** Aladdin, dagger

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 32. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (magician), 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:pg128:32:106
# text = But when the magician came near, Aladdin, seizing his dagger, pierced him to the heart.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
2	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	5	mark	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	magician	magician	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	_
6	near	near	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	Aladdin	Aladdin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	seizing	seize	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	dagger	dagger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
14	pierced	pierce	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the magician | Aladdin |  |  |  | near *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **seize** | gerund | the magician *not said here* | Aladdin's dagger |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dagger=Theme |
| 3 | **pierce** | past |  | Aladdin |  |  |  | to the heart | vn poke-19-1 «NP V NP PP.patient»: agent=Agent he=Instrument |

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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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