---
title: ‘But why is it you are always so sad? — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But why is it you are always so sad? Who acts: reason. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mogarzea and His Son, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Mogarzea and His Son, sentence 21

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‘But why is it you are always so sad?

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**Who acts:** reason · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mogarzea and His Son. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (reason), 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:pg641:44:21
# text = ‘But why is it you are always so sad?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
3	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
7	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
8	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	10	advmod	_	_
9	so	so	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | reason |  |  |  |  | always, sad *property* | tree rules |

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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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