---
title: The night was so black that little Hans could hardly see, and the wi… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The night was so black that little Hans could hardly see, and the wind was so strong that he could scarcely stand. Who acts: night, little Hans, wind. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/48/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Happy Prince, and Other Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/) / [Opening, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/) / 48

# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 5, sentence 48

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The night was so black that little Hans could hardly see, and the wind was so strong that he could scarcely stand.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** night, little Hans, wind · **What happens:** be, see, stand

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (night, little Hans, wind), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg902:470`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg902:5:48
# text = The night was so black that little Hans could hardly see, and the wind was so strong that he could scarcely stand.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	Hans	Hans	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	stand	stand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	_
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the night |  |  |  |  | black *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | could | little Hans |  |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is** | past | the wind |  |  |  |  | strong *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **stand** | could | wind |  |  |  |  | scarcely *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Project Gutenberg book 902 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 47](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/47/)
- next →: [sentence 49](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/49/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/)