---
title: To these words the fish lifting up their heads replied, "Yes, yes. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: To these words the fish lifting up their heads replied, "Yes, yes. Who acts: fish. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 5, sentence 42

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To these words the fish lifting up their heads replied, "Yes, yes.

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**Who acts:** fish · **What happens:** lift up, reply · **To what, where:** heads

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fish), 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:pg128:5:42
# text = To these words the fish lifting up their heads replied, "Yes, yes.
1	To	to	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
3	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
6	lifting	lift	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
7	up	up	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
10	replied	reply	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	Yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
15	yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	13	discourse	_	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 | **lift up** | gerund | the fish *not said here* | fish's heads |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | participle | the fish *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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