---
title: And as he spoke he tried to loosen the grasp of the blind beggar. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: And as he spoke he tried to loosen the grasp of the blind beggar. Who acts: Caliph. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 33, 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/pg128/33/7/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 33, sentence 7

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And as he spoke he tried to loosen the grasp of the blind beggar.

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**Who acts:** Caliph · **What happens:** speak, try, loosen, grasp · **To what, where:** grasp, blind beggar · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Caliph), 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:pg128:33:7
# text = And as he spoke he tried to loosen the grasp of the blind beggar.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	loosen	loosen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	grasp	grasp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	blind	blind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	beggar	beggar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Caliph |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **try** | past | Caliph |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **loosen** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Caliph *not said here* | the grasp of the blind beggar |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent grasp=Patient |
| 4 | **grasp** |  |  | the blind beggar |  |  |  |  | nom grasp «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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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