---
title: The robbers, however, only laughed, and declared that was none of th… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: The robbers, however, only laughed, and declared that was none of their business, and, without more words, attacked us brutally. Who acts: robbers. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 8, sentence 39

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The robbers, however, only laughed, and declared that was none of their business, and, without more words, attacked us brutally.

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**Who acts:** robbers · **What happens:** laugh, declare, be, attack · **To what, where:** none, us

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (robbers), 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:pg128:8:39
# text = The robbers, however, only laughed, and declared that was none of their business, and, without more words, attacked us brutally.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	robbers	robber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	however	however	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	declared	declare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
11	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	det	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	none	none	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	10	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
20	without	without	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	22	amod	_	_
22	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
24	attacked	attack	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
25	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	brutally	brutally	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | past | the robbers |  |  |  |  | however *property* | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **declare** *speech: other* | past | the robbers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | past |  | none |  |  |  | of robbers's business | tree rules |
| 4 | **attack** | past | the robbers *not said here* | us |  |  |  | without more words; brutally *property* | vn attack-60.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent we=Patient |

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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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