---
title: ‘What is the matter, sir, said he, ‘you look troubled?’ — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What is the matter, sir, said he, ‘you look troubled?’ Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 3

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‘What is the matter, sir, said he, ‘you look troubled?’

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** be, say, look · **To what, where:** matter · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg641:41:3
# text = ‘What is the matter, sir, said he, ‘you look troubled?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	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	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	sir	sir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	look	look	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
15	troubled	troubled	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	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 sir |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **look** | present | man |  |  |  |  | troubled *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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