---
title: “What is the matter?” said the master's son to him. — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What is the matter?” said the master's son to him. Who acts: matter. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Cap O' Rushes, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Cap O' Rushes, sentence 92

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“What is the matter?” said the master's son to him.

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

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Cap O' Rushes. 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.

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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:pg7439:15:92
# text = “What is the matter?” said the master's son to him.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	nsubj:outer	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	's	's	PART	POS	_	10	case	_	_
12	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | the matter |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past |  | the master's son | son |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent son=Topic to he=Recipient |

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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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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