---
title: The little valley, or open space, was shut up by two mountains, whos… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: The little valley, or open space, was shut up by two mountains, whose sides were formed of straight cliffs, which no human being could climb. Who acts: two mountains, human being. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 33, with its dependency tree and the pra
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 33, sentence 51

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The little valley, or open space, was shut up by two mountains, whose sides were formed of straight cliffs, which no human being could climb.

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**Who acts:** two mountains, human being · **What happens:** shut up, form, climb · **To what, where:** little valley, sides, straight cliffs

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 33. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (two mountains, human being), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg128:2788`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg128:33:51
# text = The little valley, or open space, was shut up by two mountains, whose sides were formed of straight cliffs, which no human being could climb.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	valley	valley	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	space	space	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	shut	shut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
11	up	up	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	mountains	mountain	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	sides	side	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
18	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux:pass	_	_
19	formed	form	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl:relcl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	straight	straight	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	cliffs	cliff	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	_
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
24	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	29	obj	_	_
25	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	27	det	_	_
26	human	human	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	being	being	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nsubj	_	_
28	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
29	climb	climb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	acl:relcl	_	_
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shut up** | past · passive | two mountains | the little valley or open space |  |  |  |  | vn subjugate-42.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Patient |
| 2 | **form** | past · passive |  | sides |  |  |  | of straight cliffs | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 3 | **climb** | could | no human being | straight cliffs |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location which=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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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