---
title: ‘Very good, my son; and if he should ask me what is the matter, what… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Very good, my son; and if he should ask me what is the matter, what am I to say?’ Who acts: son, I. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle, 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/pg641/15/204/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of a Gazelle, sentence 204

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‘Very good, my son; and if he should ask me what is the matter, what am I to say?’

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**Who acts:** son, I · **What happens:** ask, be, say · **To what, where:** me, matter · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (son, 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:pg641:15:204
# text = ‘Very good, my son; and if he should ask me what is the matter, what am I to say?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	vocative	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	nsubj	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	23	obj	_	_
20	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | should | son |  | me |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** | present |  | the matter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | I | the matter |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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