---
title: "Sidi-Nouman," replied the Caliph, "your story is indeed a strange o… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "Sidi-Nouman," replied the Caliph, "your story is indeed a strange one, and there is no excuse to be offered for your wife. Who acts: Caliph, story, excuse. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 35, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 35, sentence 98

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"Sidi-Nouman," replied the Caliph, "your story is indeed a strange one, and there is no excuse to be offered for your wife.

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**Who acts:** Caliph, story, excuse · **What happens:** reply, be, offer · **To what, where:** strange one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Caliph, story, excuse), 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:pg128:3009`): 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:pg128:35:98
# text = "Sidi-Nouman," replied the Caliph, "your story is indeed a strange one, and there is no excuse to be offered for your wife.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	_
2	Sidi	Sidi	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	vocative	_	_
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	_
4	Nouman	Nouman	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	flat	_	_
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Caliph	caliph	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	_
12	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
15	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	ccomp	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	22	expl	_	_
22	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
23	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	24	det	_	_
24	excuse	excuse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
25	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
26	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	aux:pass	_	_
27	offered	offer	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	24	acl	_	_
28	for	for	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
30	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	_
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the Caliph |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | your story | a strange one |  |  |  | Sidi *vocative*; indeed *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** *in a quote* | present | no excuse |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **offer** *in a quote* | to-infinitive · passive | no excuse *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for your wife *goal* | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: for wife=Goal |

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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:** 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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