---
title: It would have mattered little to Hans had he known what they were sa… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It would have mattered little to Hans had he known what they were saying or thinking of him. Who acts: Hans, backs. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 92

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It would have mattered little to Hans had he known what they were saying or thinking of him.

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**Who acts:** Hans, backs · **What happens:** matter, have, know, say, think · **To what, where:** It · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hans, backs), 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:pg641:33:92
# text = It would have mattered little to Hans had he known what they were saying or thinking of him.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	aux	_	_
4	mattered	matter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	Hans	Hans	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	known	know	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	xcomp	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	obl	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	conj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **matter** | would · perfect · passive |  | It |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | Hans |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **know** | participle | Hans |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · progressive | backs *= back* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 5 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | backs *= back* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of Hans | vn focus-87.1-1 «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:** «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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