---
title: Birds sang in the trees, which were netted over to keep them always… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: Birds sang in the trees, which were netted over to keep them always there. Who acts: Birds. 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 73

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Birds sang in the trees, which were netted over to keep them always there.

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**Who acts:** Birds · **What happens:** sing, net over, keep · **To what, where:** trees, Birds

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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 (Birds), 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:pg128:5:73
# text = Birds sang in the trees, which were netted over to keep them always there.
1	Birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	netted	net	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl:relcl	_	_
10	over	over	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	advcl	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	15	advmod	_	_
15	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | Birds |  |  | the trees |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in tree=Location |
| 2 | **net over** | past · passive |  | the trees |  |  |  | over *property* | vn cost-54.2 «NP V NP.value»: subject=Value |
| 3 | **keep** | to-infinitive |  | Birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=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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