---
title: But, if you will pardon my saying so, I was lost in astonishment at… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: But, if you will pardon my saying so, I was lost in astonishment at seeing such beautiful ladies by themselves. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 6, sentence 28

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But, if you will pardon my saying so, I was lost in astonishment at seeing such beautiful ladies by themselves.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** pardon, say, lose, see · **To what, where:** I, astonishment, such beautiful ladies · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg128:549`): 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:pg128:6:28
# text = But, if you will pardon my saying so, I was lost in astonishment at seeing such beautiful ladies by themselves.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	pardon	pardon	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	saying	say	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	obj	_	_
9	so	so	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	astonishment	astonishment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
16	at	at	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
17	seeing	see	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	advcl	_	_
18	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
19	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	ladies	lady	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	_
21	by	by	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	17	obl	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pardon** *a condition, not said to happen* | future | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **lose** | past · passive |  | I |  | astonishment |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |
| 4 | **see** | gerund |  | such beautiful ladies |  |  |  | by Ladies *= lady* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer lady=Stimulus |

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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:** 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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