---
title: It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. Who acts: It, snow. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Match-seller, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Match-seller, sentence 1

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It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast.

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**Who acts:** It, snow · **What happens:** be, fall

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Match-seller. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, snow), 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:pg27200:74:1
# text = It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	terribly	terribly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	cold	cold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	falling	fall	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
22	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	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 | **be** |  |  |  |  |  | evening | nearly *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **fall** | past · progressive | the snow |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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