---
title: "If it may be no offence asking, what is it you feel so badly about?" — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "If it may be no offence asking, what is it you feel so badly about?" Who acts: trouble, offence. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 6, sentence 34

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"If it may be no offence asking, what is it you feel so badly about?"

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**Who acts:** trouble, offence · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** offence

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (trouble, offence), 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:pg14241:20:34
# text = "If it may be no offence asking, what is it you feel so badly about?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
6	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	7	det	_	_
7	offence	offence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	asking	ask	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	appos	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	feel	feel	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|Typo=Yes|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	badly	badly	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	14	advmod	_	_
17	about	about	ADP	IN	_	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | may | trouble | no offence |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | gerund | no offence *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | trouble |  |  |  |  | badly, feel *property* | 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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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