Standard English and dialect: "we was" in talk, "we were" in writing, sentence 9
Two negatives together, as in "I didn't see nobody", are a regular pattern in many dialects (and in languages such as French); Standard English says "I didn't see anybody".
Who acts: Standard, Two negatives · What happens: not see, be, say · To what, where: nobody, regular pattern, many dialects, anybody · 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, Two negatives), 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 | Two | two | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 2 negatives | nummod |
| 2 | negatives | negative | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 pattern | nsubj |
| 3 | together | together | ADV | _ | 2 negatives | advmod |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 pattern | punct |
| 5 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 11 see | mark |
| 6 | in | in | SCONJ | _ | 11 see | mark |
| 7 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 11 see | punct |
| 8 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 11 see | nsubj |
| 9 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 see | aux |
| 10 | n't | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 11 see | advmod |
| 11 | see | see | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 18 pattern | advcl |
| 12 | nobody | nobody | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | 11 see | obj |
| 13 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 11 see | punct |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 see | punct |
| 15 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 18 pattern | cop |
| 16 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 18 pattern | det |
| 17 | regular | regular | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 18 pattern | amod |
| 18 | pattern | pattern | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 19 | in | in | ADP | _ | 21 dialects | case |
| 20 | many | many | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 21 dialects | amod |
| 21 | dialects | dialect | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 pattern | nmod |
| 22 | ( | ( | PUNCT | _ | 25 languages | punct |
| 23 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 25 languages | cc |
| 24 | in | in | ADP | _ | 25 languages | case |
| 25 | languages | language | NOUN | Number=Plur | 21 dialects | conj |
| 26 | such | such | ADJ | Degree=Pos ExtPos=ADP | 28 French | case |
| 27 | as | as | ADP | _ | 26 such | fixed |
| 28 | French | French | PROPN | Number=Sing | 25 languages | nmod |
| 29 | ) | ) | PUNCT | _ | 25 languages | punct |
| 30 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 33 says | punct |
| 31 | Standard | Standard | PROPN | Number=Sing | 33 says | nsubj |
| 32 | English | English | PROPN | Number=Sing | 31 Standard | flat |
| 33 | says | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 18 pattern | parataxis |
| 34 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 38 see | punct |
| 35 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 38 see | nsubj |
| 36 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 38 see | aux |
| 37 | n't | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 38 see | advmod |
| 38 | see | see | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 33 says | ccomp |
| 39 | anybody | anybody | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Ind | 38 see | obj |
| 40 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 38 see | punct |
| 41 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 18 pattern | punct |
Pragmatics
No stored speech act for this sentence.
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not see in a quote | past · do-support | Standard | nobody | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer nobody=Stimulus | ||||
| 2 | is a | present | Two negatives | a regular pattern | many dialects and languages such French | tree rules | |||
| 3 | say speech: assert | present | Standard | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 4 | not see in a quote | past · do-support | Standard | anybody | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer anybody=Stimulus |
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:9.
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): R6-punct-agree ×2, R7-rel-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/9/