---
title: She thought that one of her slaves must have been telling tales of h… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: She thought that one of her slaves must have been telling tales of her, but they told her it was the parrot, and she resolved to revenge herself on him. Who acts: wife, one, tales, absence. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 4, with its dependency tree an
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 4, sentence 24

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She thought that one of her slaves must have been telling tales of her, but they told her it was the parrot, and she resolved to revenge herself on him.

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**Who acts:** wife, one, tales, absence · **What happens:** think, tell, be, resolve, revenge · **To what, where:** tales, wife, parrot · **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 (wife, one, tales, absence), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg128:333`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg128:4:24
# text = She thought that one of her slaves must have been telling tales of her, but they told her it was the parrot, and she resolved to revenge herself on him.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
4	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nsubj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	slaves	slave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	_
8	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
9	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux	_	_
10	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	aux	_	_
11	telling	tell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	ccomp	_	_
12	tales	tale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nmod	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
19	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	iobj	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	parrot	parrot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	ccomp	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
26	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
27	resolved	resolve	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
28	to	to	PART	TO	_	29	mark	_	_
29	revenge	revenge	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	xcomp	_	_
30	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	29	obj	_	_
31	on	on	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	obl	_	_
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | must · perfect · progressive | one of wife's slaves | tales of wife |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent tale=Recipient |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | tales *= tale* |  | wife |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent she=Recipient |
| 4 | **is a** | past | absence | the parrot |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **resolve** | past | wife |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **revenge** | to-infinitive | wife *not said here* | wife |  |  |  | on man | tree rules |
| 7 | **tell** |  | wife |  |  |  |  |  | nom tale «communication intransitive»: of=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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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