---
title: The lady did not answer, but silently descended the staircase, the p… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: The lady did not answer, but silently descended the staircase, the prince following her. Who acts: lady, prince. 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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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 7, sentence 72

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The lady did not answer, but silently descended the staircase, the prince following her.

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**Who acts:** lady, prince · **What happens:** not answer, descend, follow · **To what, where:** staircase, way

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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 (lady, prince), 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:pg128:7:72
# text = The lady did not answer, but silently descended the staircase, the prince following her.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	silently	silently	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	descended	descend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	staircase	staircase	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	appos	_	_
15	following	follow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	acl	_	_
16	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **answer** *speech: assert* | past · do-support | the lady |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **descend** | past |  | the staircase |  |  |  | silently *property* | vn meander-47.7-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location staircase=Theme |
| 3 | **follow** | gerund | the prince *not said here* | way |  |  |  |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=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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