---
title: "They are most curious and interesting," replied the dervish. " — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "They are most curious and interesting," replied the dervish. " Who acts: virtues, dervish. 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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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 33, sentence 99

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"They are most curious and interesting," replied the dervish. "

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**Who acts:** virtues, dervish · **What happens:** be, reply · **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 (virtues, dervish), 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:pg128:33:99
# text = "They are most curious and interesting," replied the dervish. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	5	advmod	_	_
5	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	interesting	interesting	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
10	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	dervish	dervish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | virtues *= virtue* |  |  |  |  | curious *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** *in a quote* |  | virtues *= virtue* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the dervish |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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