---
title: ‘What matters an extra egg or two, or a little butter or flour and s… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What matters an extra egg or two, or a little butter or flour and spice more or less, in such a house as this?’ said he. Who acts: fellow. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 2, sentence 94

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘What matters an extra egg or two, or a little butter or flour and spice more or less, in such a house as this?’ said he.

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**Who acts:** fellow · **What happens:** matter, spice, say · **To what, where:** extra egg, house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fellow), 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:pg641:27:94
# text = ‘What matters an extra egg or two, or a little butter or flour and spice more or less, in such a house as this?’ said he.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	nsubj	_	_
3	matters	matter	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	30	ccomp	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	extra	extra	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	egg	egg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	butter	butter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
14	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	flour	flour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	spice	spice	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
18	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	17	advmod	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	less	less	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	25	det:predet	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
26	as	as	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
30	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
31	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	30	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **matter** | present |  | a extra egg |  |  |  | a little butter or flour *obl* | tree rules |
| 2 | **spice** | present |  |  |  | such house as this |  |  | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | fellow |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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.

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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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