Standard English and dialect: "we was" in talk, "we were" in writing, sentence 3

So when a teacher writes "we were" over "we was", she is not saying Kai's family talks wrong; she is handing him a second tool, the way a footballer has home kit and away kit and wears each at the right match.

Who acts: teacher, family, footballer · What happens: write, be, not be, talk, hand, have · To what, where: second tool, English, home kit, each, right match · 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 (teacher, family, footballer), 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	So	so	ADV	_	5 writes	advmod
2	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	5 writes	advmod
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 teacher	det
4	teacher	teacher	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 writes	nsubj
5	writes	write	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	"	"	PUNCT	_	10 over	punct
7	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	8 were	nsubj
8	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 over	cop
9	"	"	PUNCT	_	8 were	punct
10	over	over	ADV	_	5 writes	advmod
11	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 writes	punct
12	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	13 was	nsubj
13	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 saying	cop
14	"	"	PUNCT	_	13 was	punct
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 saying	punct
16	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 saying	nsubj
17	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	19 saying	aux
18	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	19 saying	advmod
19	saying	say	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	5 writes	advcl
20	Kai	Kai	PROPN	Number=Sing	22 family	nmod:poss
21	's	's	PART	_	20 Kai	case
22	family	family	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 talks	nsubj
23	talks	talk	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	19 saying	ccomp
24	wrong	wrong	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 talks	amod
25	;	;	PUNCT	_	28 handing	punct
26	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 handing	nsubj
27	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	28 handing	aux
28	handing	hand	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	19 saying	parataxis
29	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 handing	iobj
30	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	32 tool	det
31	second	second	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	32 tool	amod
32	tool	tool	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 handing	obj
33	,	,	PUNCT	_	35 way	punct
34	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 way	det
35	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 saying	obl:unmarked
36	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	37 footballer	det
37	footballer	footballer	NOUN	Number=Sing	38 has	nsubj
38	has	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	35 way	acl:relcl
39	home	home	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 kit	compound
40	kit	kit	NOUN	Number=Sing	38 has	obj
41	and	and	CCONJ	_	43 kit	cc
42	away	away	ADV	_	43 kit	advmod
43	kit	kit	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 kit	conj
44	and	and	CCONJ	_	45 wears	cc
45	wears	wear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	38 has	conj
46	each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	45 wears	obj
47	at	at	ADP	_	50 match	case
48	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	50 match	det
49	right	right	ADJ	Degree=Pos	50 match	amod
50	match	match	NOUN	Number=Sing	45 wears	obl
51	.	.	PUNCT	_	19 saying	punct

Pragmatics

form: statement
act: assert
voice: narrator
polarity: none
teacher: changed polarity=none

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	write	present	a teacher					vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	is	past					over property	tree rules
3	not be speech: assert	past · progressive	teacher				the way obl:unmarked; say property	tree rules
4	talk	present	Kai's family					vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	hand	present · progressive	family	a second tool	English			vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Destination tool=Theme
6	have	present	a footballer	home kit and kit				vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent kit=Patient
7	wear	present	a footballer not said here	each		the right match		vn wipe_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent each=Source

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:3.

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): R5-strong ×4, R6-punct-agree ×3, R7-rel-agree ×4, R8-pos-agree ×1. 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/3/