---
title: Knowing Ali Baba’s poverty, the sister was curious to find out what… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Knowing Ali Baba’s poverty, the sister was curious to find out what sort of grain his wife wished to measure, and artfully put some suet at the bottom of the measure. Who acts: you, sister, wife. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the 
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 26

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Knowing Ali Baba’s poverty, the sister was curious to find out what sort of grain his wife wished to measure, and artfully put some suet at the bottom of the measure.

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**Who acts:** you, sister, wife · **What happens:** know, be, find out, wish, measure, put · **To what, where:** poverty, sort, suet, bottom, grain

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, sister, wife), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:34:26
# text = Knowing Ali Baba’s poverty, the sister was curious to find out what sort of grain his wife wished to measure, and artfully put some suet at the bottom of the measure.
1	Knowing	know	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	26	advcl	_	_
2	Ali	Ali	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	_
3	Baba	Baba	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
5	poverty	poverty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	csubj	_	_
13	out	out	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	what	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	15	det	_	_
15	sort	sort	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	grain	grain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
20	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	measure	measure	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
25	artfully	artfully	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	put	put	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
27	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	28	det	_	_
28	suet	suet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	_
29	at	at	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
32	of	of	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	measure	measure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	26	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | gerund | you *not said here* | Ali's poverty |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer poverty=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** | past | the sister |  |  |  |  | curious *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **find out** | to-infinitive |  | what sort of grain |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sort=Topic |
| 4 | **wish** | past | Ali's wife | what sort of grain *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **measure** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Ali's wife *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn register-54.1-2-1 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **put** | imperative | you *not said here* | some suet |  | the bottom of the measure |  | artfully *property* | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent suet=Theme at bottom=Destination |
| 7 | **sort** |  |  | grain |  |  |  |  | nom sort «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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