---
title: I know nothing about that; you only told me there were olives. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: I know nothing about that; you only told me there were olives. Who acts: I, you, olives. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 36, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 36, sentence 64

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I know nothing about that; you only told me there were olives.

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**Who acts:** I, you, olives · **What happens:** know, tell, be · **To what, where:** nothing, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 36. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you, olives), 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:pg128:36:64
# text = I know nothing about that; you only told me there were olives.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	2	obj	_	_
4	about	about	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	only	only	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
10	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	12	expl	_	_
12	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
13	olives	olive	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | present | I | nothing |  |  |  | about that | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer nothing=Stimulus |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | you |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **be** | past | olives |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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