---
title: Tell me, I pray you, what is the matter, for perhaps I can help!” — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Tell me, I pray you, what is the matter, for perhaps I can help!” Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 99

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Tell me, I pray you, what is the matter, for perhaps I can help!”

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** tell, pray, be, help · **To what, where:** me, you, matter · **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 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I), 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:pg3282:25:99
# text = Tell me, I pray you, what is the matter, for perhaps I can help!”
1	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	pray	pray	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	1	parataxis	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	obl	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
14	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | imperative | you *not said here* |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 2 | **pray** | present | I | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | present |  | the matter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **help** | can | I |  |  |  |  | perhaps *property* | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |

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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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