---
title: Nobody had the least idea how it had happened; the weather was quite… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Nobody had the least idea how it had happened; the weather was quite dry. Who acts: Nobody, it, weather. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Elder-tree Mother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Elder-tree Mother, sentence 2

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Nobody had the least idea how it had happened; the weather was quite dry.

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**Who acts:** Nobody, it, weather · **What happens:** have, happen, be · **To what, where:** least idea

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Elder-tree Mother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nobody, it, weather), 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:pg27200:72:2
# text = Nobody had the least idea how it had happened; the weather was quite dry.
1	Nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	amod	_	_
5	idea	idea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	weather	weather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Nobody | the least idea |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent idea=Patient |
| 2 | **happen** | past · perfect | it |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | the weather |  |  |  |  | dry *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:** «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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