---
title: ‘What is the matter, my dove?’ and the girl answered, between her so… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What is the matter, my dove?’ and the girl answered, between her sobs: Who acts: matter, woman. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 36, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 36, sentence 27

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‘What is the matter, my dove?’ and the girl answered, between her sobs:

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**Who acts:** matter, woman · **What happens:** be, answer, sob · **To what, where:** matter, sobs

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 36. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (matter, woman), 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:pg3454:36:27
# text = ‘What is the matter, my dove?’ and the girl answered, between her sobs:
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	_
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	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	dove	dove	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
14	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	between	between	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	sobs	sob	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	18	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 and the girl |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the matter and the girl | woman's sobs |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent sob=Eventuality |
| 3 | **sob** |  | woman |  |  |  |  |  | nom sob «state intransitive»: poss=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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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