---
title: "That was just a chance," people said; but do things happen by chance? — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "That was just a chance," people said; but do things happen by chance? Who acts: That, people, things. 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.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Anne Lisbeth, sentence 174

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"That was just a chance," people said; but do things happen by chance?

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**Who acts:** That, people, things · **What happens:** be, say, happen · **To what, where:** chance · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (That, people, things), 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:pg27200:5:174
# text = "That was just a chance," people said; but do things happen by chance?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	just	just	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	chance	chance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
15	happen	happen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
16	by	by	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	chance	chance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	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* | past | That | a chance |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | people |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **happen** | present · do-support | things |  |  |  |  | by chance | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme by chance=Location |

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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:** «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.

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