---
title: ‘What is the matter, dear child?’ asked Marie. — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What is the matter, dear child?’ asked Marie. Who acts: matter. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/16/45/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/16/) / 45

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 45

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘What is the matter, dear child?’ asked Marie.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** matter · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** matter, Marie

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (matter), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg5615:16:45
# text = ‘What is the matter, dear child?’ asked Marie.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	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	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	Marie	Marie	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | 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 matter |  | Marie |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent marie=Recipient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/16/44/)
- next →: [sentence 46](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/16/46/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/16/)