---
title: The sultan, instead of answering, put his hands before his eyes to e… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: The sultan, instead of answering, put his hands before his eyes to exclude so frightful a sight. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 15, sentence 9

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The sultan, instead of answering, put his hands before his eyes to exclude so frightful a sight.

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**What happens:** answer, put, exclude · **To what, where:** hands, eyes, frightful sight, sultan

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 15. 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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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:15:9
# text = The sultan, instead of answering, put his hands before his eyes to exclude so frightful a sight.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sultan	sultan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	instead	instead	ADV	RB	ExtPos=SCONJ	6	mark	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	fixed	_	_
6	answering	answer	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	before	before	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	exclude	exclude	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
16	so	so	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	frightful	frightful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **put** | infinitive |  | sultan's hands |  | sultan's eyes |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent hand=Theme before eye=Destination |
| 3 | **exclude** | to-infinitive |  | a frightful sight |  |  |  |  | vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer sight=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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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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