---
title: "Oh, nothing ever happens to a man if he has confidence in himself,"… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Oh, nothing ever happens to a man if he has confidence in himself," replied Rudy. Who acts: nothing, man, Rudy. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/55/152/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, IV. Babette, sentence 152

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"Oh, nothing ever happens to a man if he has confidence in himself," replied Rudy.

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**Who acts:** nothing, man, Rudy · **What happens:** happen, have, reply · **To what, where:** confidence · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nothing, man, Rudy), 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:pg27200:55:152
# text = "Oh, nothing ever happens to a man if he has confidence in himself," replied Rudy.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	6	nsubj	_	_
5	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	6	advmod	_	_
6	happens	happen	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	_
13	confidence	confidence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
18	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
19	Rudy	Rudy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** *in a quote* | present | nothing |  |  |  | ever | to a man | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | man | confidence |  |  |  | in man | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent confidence=Patient |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Rudy |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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