---
title: Why, if every country house was like this, the towns would soon be d… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Why, if every country house was like this, the towns would soon be deserted. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 44, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 44, sentence 10

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Why, if every country house was like this, the towns would soon be deserted.

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**What happens:** be, desert · **To what, where:** country house

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 44. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg128:44:10
# text = Why, if every country house was like this, the towns would soon be deserted.
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
4	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	6	det	_	_
5	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
8	like	like	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	towns	town	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
14	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	16	advmod	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	deserted	desert	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	1	advcl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | like this | tree rules |
| 2 | **desert** | would · passive |  | every country house |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn leave-51.2-1 «NP V NP.initial\_location»: subject=Source |

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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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