---
title: The official was much astonished to see that the cradle, which he ha… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: The official was much astonished to see that the cradle, which he had supposed to be empty, contained a baby, which, young though it was, already gave promise of great beauty. Who acts: official, gardener, cradle, baby. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 41, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The official was much astonished to see that the cradle, which he had supposed to be empty, contained a baby, which, young though it was, already gave promise of great beauty.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** official, gardener, cradle, baby · **What happens:** be, see, suppose, contain, give, promise · **To what, where:** cradle, baby, promise, great beauty · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 41. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (official, gardener, cradle, baby), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg128:3388`): 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:pg128:41:3
# text = The official was much astonished to see that the cradle, which he had supposed to be empty, contained a baby, which, young though it was, already gave promise of great beauty.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	official	official	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	much	much	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	astonished	astonished	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	cradle	cradle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	obj	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	supposed	suppose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	10	acl:relcl	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	cop	_	_
18	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	xcomp	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
20	contained	contain	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	baby	baby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
24	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	32	nsubj	_	_
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
26	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	advcl	_	_
27	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
28	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
29	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
31	already	already	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	_
32	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	acl:relcl	_	_
33	promise	promise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obj	_	_
34	of	of	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
36	beauty	beauty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	nmod	_	_
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the official |  |  |  |  | astonished *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | to-infinitive | the official *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **suppose** | past · perfect | gardener | the cradle |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent which=Attribute |
| 4 | **is** | to-infinitive | gardener *not said here* |  |  |  |  | empty *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **contain** | past | the cradle | a baby |  |  |  |  | vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot baby=Theme |
| 6 | **is** | past | cradle |  |  |  |  | young *property* | tree rules |
| 7 | **give** | past | a baby | promise of great beauty |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent promise=Theme |
| 8 | **promise** |  |  | great beauty |  |  |  |  | nom promise «communication transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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:** 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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