---
title: "Your prayers are useless, and if it were only to hear your head spe… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "Your prayers are useless, and if it were only to hear your head speak when you are dead, you should die." Who acts: prayers, mercy, head, you. 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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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 4, sentence 98

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Your prayers are useless, and if it were only to hear your head speak when you are dead, you should die."

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**Who acts:** prayers, mercy, head, you, Your · **What happens:** be, hear, speak, die, pray · **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 (prayers, mercy, head, you), 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:pg128:4:98
# text = "Your prayers are useless, and if it were only to hear your head speak when you are dead, you should die."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	prayers	prayer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
4	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	useless	useless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	only	only	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
14	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
17	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	20	advmod	_	_
18	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
23	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Your prayers |  |  |  |  | useless *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **hear** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past | mercy |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* *in a quote* | infinitive | your head |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  | dead *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **die** *in a quote* | should | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 6 | **pray** *in a quote* |  | Your |  |  |  |  |  | nom prayer «act intransitive»: poss=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.

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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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