---
title: Big questions often come at bedtime, in the dark, when the house is… — Bedtime fears: «Will you die, Mum?» and «Will I… · tree and pragmatics
description: Big questions often come at bedtime, in the dark, when the house is quiet: «Mum, will you die?» asks Sophie, and Max lies awake wondering if he might die in his sleep. Who acts: Big questions, house, you, Sophie. A sentence of the lesson «Bedtime fears: «Will you die, Mum?» and «Will I die?»» of the
---

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# Bedtime fears: «Will you die, Mum?» and «Will I die?», sentence 0

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Big questions often come at bedtime, in the dark, when the house is quiet: «Mum, will you die?» asks Sophie, and Max lies awake wondering if he might die in his sleep.

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**Who acts:** Big questions, house, you, Sophie, Max · **What happens:** come, be, die, ask, lie, wondering · **To what, where:** bedtime · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Bedtime fears: «Will you die, Mum?» and «Will I die?»» of the religion ethics course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Big questions, house, you, Sophie), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:religion-ethics:070-bedtime-fears-will-you-die-mum-and-will-i-die.lesson:0
# text = Big questions often come at bedtime, in the dark, when the house is quiet: «Mum, will you die?» asks Sophie, and Max lies awake wondering if he might die in his sleep.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = religion-ethics
# lesson = 070-bedtime-fears-will-you-die-mum-and-will-i-die.lesson
# annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R7-rel-agree ×2
1	Big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	questions	question	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	often	often	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	come	come	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	bedtime	bedtime	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	dark	dark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
16	quiet	quiet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	advcl	_	_
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	26	punct	_	_
18	«	«	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	_
19	Mum	mum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	vocative	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	ccomp	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=26:parataxis
24	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	23	punct	_	_
25	»	»	PUNCT	''	_	23	punct	_	_
26	asks	ask	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
27	Sophie	Sophie	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	_
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
30	Max	Max	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	31	nsubj	_	_
31	lies	lie	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	conj	_	_
32	awake	awake	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
33	wondering	wondering	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	31	advcl	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=31:xcomp
34	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	37	mark	_	_
35	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	37	nsubj	_	_
36	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	37	aux	_	_
37	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	33	ccomp	_	_
38	in	in	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
39	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	40	nmod:poss	_	_
40	sleep	sleep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	obl	_	_
41	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed act=narrate

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | present | Big questions |  |  | bedtime |  | in the dark; often *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at bedtime=Location |
| 2 | **is** | present | the house |  |  |  |  | quiet *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **die** *in a quote* | future | you |  |  |  |  | Mum *vocative* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 4 | **ask** *speech: ask* | present | Sophie |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **lie** | present | Max |  |  |  |  | awake *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **wondering** | gerund | Max *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 7 | **die** *a condition, not said to happen* | might | Max |  |  |  |  | in Max's sleep | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.patient V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in sleep=Attribute |
| 8 | **sleep** |  | Max |  |  |  |  |  | nom sleep «state intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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**Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:religion-ethics:070-bedtime-fears-will-you-die-mum-and-will-i-die.lesson:0`.

**The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R7-rel-agree ×2. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/).

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