---
title: Ali Baba did his best to comfort her, and set out to the forest in s… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Ali Baba did his best to comfort her, and set out to the forest in search of Cassim. 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 52

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Ali Baba did his best to comfort her, and set out to the forest in search of Cassim.

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**What happens:** comfort, set out, search · **To what, where:** wife, forest, Cassim

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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: 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:pg503:34:52
# text = Ali Baba did his best to comfort her, and set out to the forest in search of Cassim.
1	Ali	Ali	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
2	Baba	Baba	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	flat	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	comfort	comfort	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	csubj	_	_
8	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	set	set	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
12	out	out	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	search	search	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	Cassim	Cassim	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **comfort** | to-infinitive |  | wife |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus she=Experiencer |
| 2 | **set out** | infinitive |  |  |  | the forest in search of Cassim |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to forest=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **search** |  |  | Cassim |  |  |  |  | nom search «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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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