---
title: The merchants of Cairo were surprised and whispered to one another. — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: The merchants of Cairo were surprised and whispered to one another. Who acts: merchants. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 17, sentence 62

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The merchants of Cairo were surprised and whispered to one another.

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**Who acts:** merchants · **What happens:** be, whisper · **To what, where:** one

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (merchants), 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:pg65965:17:62
# text = The merchants of Cairo were surprised and whispered to one another.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	merchants	merchant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	Cairo	Cairo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	surprised	surprised	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	whispered	whisper	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	obl	_	_
11	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	10	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the merchants of Cairo |  |  |  |  | surprised *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | past | the merchants of Cairo *not said here* |  | one |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to one=Recipient |

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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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