---
title: “What is the matter?” asked he, stopping in front of them. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “What is the matter?” asked he, stopping in front of them. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/24/75/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 75

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“What is the matter?” asked he, stopping in front of them.

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**What happens:** be, ask, stop · **To what, where:** matter, front · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24. 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:pg3282:24:75
# text = “What is the matter?” asked he, stopping in front of them.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	obj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	stopping	stop	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	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* | present |  | the matter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | matter |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **stop** | gerund |  |  |  | front of brothers |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in front=Location |

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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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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