---
title: I tried to argue with him, but in vain. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: I tried to argue with him, but in vain. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/38/42/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 38, sentence 42

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I tried to argue with him, but in vain.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** try, argue

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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 (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:pg128:38:42
# text = I tried to argue with him, but in vain.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	argue	argue	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **argue** *speech: disagree* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with father | vn chit\_chat-37.6-1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with he=Co-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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