---
title: Before entering, the prince paused and listened, but he heard nothin… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Before entering, the prince paused and listened, but he heard nothing except the sound of men snoring. Who acts: prince, men. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/38/1/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Arabian Nights Entertainments](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/) / [Opening, part 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/38/) / 1

# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 38, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Before entering, the prince paused and listened, but he heard nothing except the sound of men snoring.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** prince, men · **What happens:** enter, pause, listen, hear, snore · **To what, where:** nothing

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, men), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg128:38:1
# text = Before entering, the prince paused and listened, but he heard nothing except the sound of men snoring.
1	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	2	mark	_	_
2	entering	enter	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	paused	pause	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	listened	listen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	12	obj	_	_
14	except	except	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	_
19	snoring	snore	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **enter** | gerund | the prince *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **pause** | past | the prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn linger-53.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **listen** | past | the prince *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **hear** | past | prince | nothing |  |  |  | except the sound of men | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer nothing=Stimulus |
| 5 | **snore** | gerund | men *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Opening, part 37, 95](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/37/95/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/38/2/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/38/)