---
title: "What does it all mean?' asked the Caliph. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "What does it all mean?' asked the Caliph. Who acts: Caliph. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/7/4/)

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 7, sentence 4

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"What does it all mean?' asked the Caliph.

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**Who acts:** Caliph · **What happens:** mean, ask · **To what, where:** Caliph · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Caliph), 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:pg128:7:4
# text = "What does it all mean?' asked the Caliph.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	obj	_	_
3	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	6	advmod	_	_
6	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Caliph	Caliph	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** *in a quote* | present · do-support | Caliph |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | past |  |  | the Caliph |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent caliph=Recipient clause=Topic |

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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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