happen

«happen» in Mova's school dictionary: to take place, to come about: What happened? — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (happen, happens, happened, happening)

meaning for a pupil

1) To happen is to take place, to come about: What happened? tree →

2) To happen to someone is to be the thing they go through: Something funny happened to me. tree →

3) To happen to do something is to do it by chance: I happened to see her. tree →

sense in the lessons

what is being done to the things or groups («Think: what happens to the groups?»); a study question: picture the change before choosing the operation; in science «what happens if we heat ice?» (predict); in stories events that happen in order

examples

• Not quite. Think: what happens to the groups? Here we multiply. tree →
• What happens to the apples when Tom eats 2? tree →
• What happened at school today? tree →
• Accidents can happen, so be careful. tree →
• What happens if we put the ice in the sun? tree →
• I happened to see your mum at the shop. tree →
• Something strange happened in the night. tree →
• And then a strange thing happened. tree →

note

A study question: picture what happens to the things before choosing. «happen» has no object: say «What happened?», not «What was happened?». Noun «happening» (an event).

In the corpora

• Morning sickness is feeling or being sick in early pregnancy, and despite the name it can happen at any time of day.
• A miscarriage is when a baby stops growing and dies early in pregnancy; it happens quite often and is nobody's fault.
• Different families believe different things about what happens after death, and nobody knows for certain.
• Asking what will happen first makes it less strange.
• Nothing terrible happened; they were just worn out.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «happen» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.