---
title: Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening--the last evening of the year. Who acts: it, Most. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Match Girl, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Little Match Girl, sentence 1

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Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening--the last evening of the year.

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**Who acts:** it, Most · **What happens:** be, snow

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Match Girl. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, Most), 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:pg1597:24:1
# text = Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening--the last evening of the year.
1	Most	most	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	8	nsubj	_	_
2	terribly	terribly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	cold	cold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	ccomp	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	snowed	snow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	appos	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | it |  |  |  |  | cold, terribly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **snow** | past | Most |  |  |  |  |  | vn weather-57 «It V PP.theme» |
| 3 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | dark, nearly *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:** «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 1597 (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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