---
title: Tell me," he said, "how long can olives be kept so as to be pleasant… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Tell me," he said, "how long can olives be kept so as to be pleasant eating?" Who acts: you, Cadi, olives. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 37, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 37, sentence 2

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Tell me," he said, "how long can olives be kept so as to be pleasant eating?"

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**Who acts:** you, Cadi, olives · **What happens:** tell, say, keep, be, eat · **To what, where:** me, olives · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 37. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Cadi, 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:pg128:37:2
# text = Tell me," he said, "how long can olives be kept so as to be pleasant eating?"
1	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
10	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	14	advmod	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	olives	olive	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	kept	keep	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	ccomp	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
19	pleasant	pleasant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	_
20	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	19	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | imperative | you *not said here* |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | Cadi |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **keep** | can · passive |  | olives |  |  |  | long *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | to-infinitive | olives *not said here* |  |  |  |  | pleasant *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **eat** | gerund | olives *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «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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