---
title: “By the beard of the Prophet I never saw such a thing in all my life!” — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: “By the beard of the Prophet I never saw such a thing in all my life!” Who acts: Caliph. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 9, sentence 107

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“By the beard of the Prophet I never saw such a thing in all my life!”

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**Who acts:** Caliph · **What happens:** not see · **To what, where:** thing, life

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Caliph), 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:pg65965:9:109
# text = “By the beard of the Prophet I never saw such a thing in all my life!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	By	by	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	Prophet	Prophet	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	13	det:predet	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	17	det:predet	_	_
16	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **see** *in a quote* | past | the Caliph *= caliph* | such thing |  | my life |  | by the beard of the Prophet | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thing=Stimulus |

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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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