---
title: 'Why, what is the matter?' asked the greyhound, looking up with asto… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'Why, what is the matter?' asked the greyhound, looking up with astonishment. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 19, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 19, sentence 48

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'Why, what is the matter?' asked the greyhound, looking up with astonishment.

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**What happens:** be, ask, look up · **To what, where:** matter, greyhound · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 19. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg3027:19:48
# text = 'Why, what is the matter?' asked the greyhound, looking up with astonishment.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	greyhound	greyhound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
15	up	up	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	astonishment	astonishment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present |  | the matter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | the greyhound |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent greyhound=Recipient |
| 3 | **look up** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | with astonishment | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

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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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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