---
title: You can believe me or not, but I have not laid a finger on the vase." — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: You can believe me or not, but I have not laid a finger on the vase." Who acts: You, I. 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 65

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You can believe me or not, but I have not laid a finger on the vase."

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**Who acts:** You, I · **What happens:** believe, not lay · **To what, where:** me, finger, vase

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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 (You, I), 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:pg128:36:65
# text = You can believe me or not, but I have not laid a finger on the vase."
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	laid	lay	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	parataxis	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	finger	finger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	vase	vase	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **believe** | can | You | me |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer i=Stimulus |
| 2 | **not** **lay** | present · perfect | I | a finger |  | the vase |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent finger=Theme on vase=Destination |

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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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