---
title: Meanwhile, tell me what I can do, and I will obey you." — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Meanwhile, tell me what I can do, and I will obey you." Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 42, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 42, sentence 88

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Meanwhile, tell me what I can do, and I will obey you."

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** tell, do, obey · **To what, where:** me, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 42. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, 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:pg128:42:88
# text = Meanwhile, tell me what I can do, and I will obey you."
1	Meanwhile	meanwhile	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	tell	tell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	obj	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	obey	obey	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | imperative | you *not said here* |  | me |  |  | meanwhile *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** | can | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 3 | **obey** | future | I | you |  |  |  |  | vn abide\_by-93.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Theme |

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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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