---
title: This was his most hopeful thought, though it often came to nothing. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: This was his most hopeful thought, though it often came to nothing. Who acts: This, toy. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Anne Lisbeth, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/5/15/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [Anne Lisbeth](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/5/) / 15

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Anne Lisbeth, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
This was his most hopeful thought, though it often came to nothing.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** This, toy · **What happens:** be, come · **To what, where:** hopeful thought, nothing

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Anne Lisbeth. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, toy), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:5:15
# text = This was his most hopeful thought, though it often came to nothing.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
4	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	5	advmod	_	_
5	hopeful	hopeful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	often	often	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | This | boy's hopeful thought |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** | past | toy |  |  | nothing |  | often *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to nothing=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/5/14/)
- next →: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/5/16/)
- ↑ back to [Anne Lisbeth](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/5/)