---
title: When they were outside the door the Caliph said: ‘Grand Vizier, this… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When they were outside the door the Caliph said: ‘Grand Vizier, this is a tiresome business. Who acts: Caliph, this. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Caliph Stork, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of Caliph Stork, sentence 144

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When they were outside the door the Caliph said: ‘Grand Vizier, this is a tiresome business.

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**Who acts:** Caliph, this · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** door, tiresome business · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Caliph Stork. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Caliph, this), 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:pg7277:7:144
# text = When they were outside the door the Caliph said: ‘Grand Vizier, this is a tiresome business.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
4	outside	outside	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Caliph	Caliph	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Grand	grand	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	Vizier	Vizier	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	nsubj	_	_
16	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	tiresome	tiresome	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | Caliph |  |  | the door |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme outside door=Location |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Caliph |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is a** | present | this | a tiresome business |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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