---
title: Ali Baba, more out of kindness than fear, told him of the cave, and… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Ali Baba, more out of kindness than fear, told him of the cave, and the very words to use. Who acts: Ali. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 36

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Ali Baba, more out of kindness than fear, told him of the cave, and the very words to use.

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**Who acts:** Ali · **What happens:** tell, use · **To what, where:** Cassim · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Ali), 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:pg503:34:36
# text = Ali Baba, more out of kindness than fear, told him of the cave, and the very words to use.
1	Ali	Ali	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
2	Baba	Baba	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	1	amod	_	_
5	out	out	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	kindness	kindness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	than	than	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	fear	fear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
11	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	very	very	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	parataxis	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	use	use	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	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 | Ali |  | Cassim |  |  | of the cave | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 2 | **use** | to-infinitive | Ali *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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 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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