Standard English and dialect: "we was" in talk, "we were" in writing, sentence 1

Standard English is the dialect used for school writing, exams, newspapers and formal letters all over the English-speaking world; it is not "better", it is the shared one, like a common plug that fits every socket.

Who acts: Standard English, world, common plug · What happens: be, use, speak, not be, share, fit · To what, where: dialect, speaking world, shared one, socket · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of the lesson «Standard English and dialect: "we was" in talk, "we were" in writing» of the english course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Standard English, world, common plug), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Standard	Standard	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 English	compound
2	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 dialect	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 dialect	cop
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 dialect	det
5	dialect	dialect	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	used	use	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	5 dialect	acl
7	for	for	ADP	_	9 writing	case
8	school	school	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 writing	compound
9	writing	writing	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 used	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 exams	punct
11	exams	exam	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 writing	conj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 newspapers	punct
13	newspapers	newspaper	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 writing	conj
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 letters	cc
15	formal	formal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 letters	amod
16	letters	letter	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 writing	conj
17	all	all	ADV	_	23 world	advmod
18	over	over	ADP	_	23 world	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 world	det
20	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	22 speaking	compound
21	-	-	PUNCT	_	22 speaking	punct
22	speaking	speak	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	23 world	amod
23	world	world	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 used	obl
24	;	;	PUNCT	_	29 better	punct
25	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 better	nsubj
26	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	29 better	cop
27	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	29 better	advmod
28	"	"	PUNCT	_	29 better	punct
29	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	5 dialect	parataxis
30	"	"	PUNCT	_	29 better	punct
31	,	,	PUNCT	_	36 one	punct
32	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	36 one	nsubj
33	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	36 one	cop
34	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	36 one	det
35	shared	share	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	36 one	amod
36	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 better	parataxis
37	,	,	PUNCT	_	41 plug	punct
38	like	like	ADP	_	41 plug	case
39	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	41 plug	det
40	common	common	ADJ	Degree=Pos	41 plug	amod
41	plug	plug	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 one	nmod
42	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	43 fits	nsubj
43	fits	fit	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	41 plug	acl:relcl
44	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	45 socket	det
45	socket	socket	NOUN	Number=Sing	43 fits	obj
46	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 dialect	punct

Pragmatics

No stored speech act for this sentence.

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is a	present	Standard English	the dialect			tree rules
2	use	participle		the dialect not said here	the speaking world	for school writing and exams and newspapers and formal letters	vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	speak speech: other	gerund					vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	not is in a quote	present	world			good property	tree rules
5	share	participle					tree rules
6	is a	present	world	the shared one		like a common plug	tree rules
7	fit	present	a common plug	every socket			vn adjust-26.9 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent socket=Patient

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.

Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, mova-school-agreed-en.conllu) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence school:english:038-standard-english-and-dialect-we-was-and-we-were.lesson:1.

The tree: Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R3-conj-first ×2, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×3. The frames are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (prag) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the release 0.4.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/38-standard-english-and-dialect-we-was-and-we-were/1/