---
title: "Alas," answered the princess, "I am too weak even to hold the sabre. — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "Alas," answered the princess, "I am too weak even to hold the sabre. Who acts: Alas. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 9, sentence 23

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"Alas," answered the princess, "I am too weak even to hold the sabre.

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**Who acts:** Alas · **What happens:** answer, be, hold · **To what, where:** princess, sabre · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Alas), 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:pg128:9:23
# text = "Alas," answered the princess, "I am too weak even to hold the sabre.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Alas	Alas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	_
5	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	too	too	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	weak	weak	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
14	even	even	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	sabre	sabre	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Alas |  | the princess |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent princess=Eventuality |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Alas |  |  |  |  | weak *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **hold** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Alas *not said here* | the sabre |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sabre=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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