---
title: The matter, however, is hardly worth referring to. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: The matter, however, is hardly worth referring to. Who acts: matter. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XVIII. Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match At Last, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XVIII. Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match At Last, sentence 55

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The matter, however, is hardly worth referring to.

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**Who acts:** matter · **What happens:** be, refer

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XVIII. Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match At Last. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (matter), 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:pg2306:21:55
# text = The matter, however, is hardly worth referring to.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	however	however	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	worth	worth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
9	referring	refer	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	csubj	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | the matter |  |  |  |  | hardly, however, worth *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **refer** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn relate-86.2-2 «NP V PP.co-theme»: agent=Theme |

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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:** «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, Project Gutenberg book 2306 (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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