---
title: When the Sultan saw the fish he was much astonished. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: When the Sultan saw the fish he was much astonished. Who acts: Sultan, fish. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 4, 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/pg128/4/136/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 4, sentence 136

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When the Sultan saw the fish he was much astonished.

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**Who acts:** Sultan, fish · **What happens:** see, be · **To what, where:** fish · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sultan, fish), 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:pg128:4:136
# text = When the Sultan saw the fish he was much astonished.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Sultan	Sultan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	much	much	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	astonished	astonished	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | the Sultan | the fish |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer fish=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** | past | fish |  |  |  |  | astonished *property* | 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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