---
title: The olive merchants pretended to examine the olives and taste them;… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: The olive merchants pretended to examine the olives and taste them; then reported to the Cadi that they were fresh and good. Who acts: olive merchants, merchants. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 37, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/37/6/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 37, sentence 6

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The olive merchants pretended to examine the olives and taste them; then reported to the Cadi that they were fresh and good.

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**Who acts:** olive merchants, merchants · **What happens:** pretend, examine, taste, report, be · **To what, where:** olives

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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 (olive merchants, merchants), 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:pg128:37:6
# text = The olive merchants pretended to examine the olives and taste them; then reported to the Cadi that they were fresh and good.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	olive	olive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	merchants	merchant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	pretended	pretend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	examine	examine	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	olives	olive	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	taste	taste	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
11	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advmod	_	_
14	reported	report	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	Cadi	Cadi	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
21	fresh	fresh	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	ccomp	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pretend** | past | the olive merchants |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **examine** | to-infinitive | the olive merchants *not said here* | the olives |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent olive=Theme |
| 3 | **taste** | infinitive | the olive merchants *not said here* | olives *= olive* |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Theme they=Attribute |
| 4 | **report** | past | the olive merchants *not said here* |  |  |  | then | to the Cadi | vn subordinate-95.2.1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to cadi=Co-Agent |
| 5 | **is** | past | merchants *= merchant* |  |  |  |  | fresh *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **be** |  | merchants *= merchant* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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