---
title: One day, when Ali Baba was in the forest, he saw a troop of men on h… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One day, when Ali Baba was in the forest, he saw a troop of men on horseback, coming toward him in a cloud of dust. Who acts: Ali Baba, Baba. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/3/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [The Forty Thieves](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/) / 3

# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
One day, when Ali Baba was in the forest, he saw a troop of men on horseback, coming toward him in a cloud of dust.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Ali Baba, Baba · **What happens:** be, see, come, cloud · **To what, where:** forest, troop, cloud, dust

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Ali Baba, Baba), 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:pg503:34:3
# text = One day, when Ali Baba was in the forest, he saw a troop of men on horseback, coming toward him in a cloud of dust.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
4	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
5	Ali	Ali	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	Baba	Baba	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	troop	troop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nmod	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	horseback	horseback	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	conj	_	_
22	toward	toward	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	dust	dust	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Ali Baba |  |  | the forest |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | past | Baba | a troop of men on horseback |  |  | day |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer troop=Stimulus |
| 3 | **come** | gerund | Baba *not said here* |  |  | a cloud of dust |  | toward Baba | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme toward he=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **cloud** |  |  | dust |  |  |  |  | nom cloud «phenomenon 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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/4/)
- ↑ back to [The Forty Thieves](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/)