---
title: At the same time a thick cloud of dust on the horizon told of the ap… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: At the same time a thick cloud of dust on the horizon told of the approach of a great army. Who acts: thick cloud, great army. 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 9

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At the same time a thick cloud of dust on the horizon told of the approach of a great army.

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**Who acts:** thick cloud, great army · **What happens:** tell, cloud, approach · **To what, where:** dust, horizon · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (thick cloud, great army), 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:pg128:8:9
# text = At the same time a thick cloud of dust on the horizon told of the approach of a great army.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	dust	dust	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	horizon	horizon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
13	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	approach	approach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	army	army	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | a thick cloud of dust on the horizon |  |  |  | time | of the approach of a great army | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **cloud** |  |  | dust |  | the horizon |  |  | nom cloud «phenomenon transitive»: of=patient on=place |
| 3 | **approach** |  | a great army |  |  |  |  |  | nom approach «act intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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