---
title: "What matters it?" said he; "I am ruined also. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "What matters it?" said he; "I am ruined also. Who acts: it, Anthony. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap, sentence 129

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"What matters it?" said he; "I am ruined also.

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**Who acts:** it, Anthony · **What happens:** matter, say, ruin · **To what, where:** Anthony · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, Anthony), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg27200:7900`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg27200:128:129
# text = "What matters it?" said he; "I am ruined also.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	_
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	obj	_	_
3	matters	matter	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	ruined	ruin	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	parataxis	_	_
14	also	also	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **matter** *in a quote* | present | it |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Anthony |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **ruin** *in a quote* | present · passive |  | Anthony |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

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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:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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