Grammar puzzles, part one, sentence 1
The classic trap: "The old man the boat." It looks broken until you see that "the old" means old people and "man" is the verb (to crew a boat): old people crew the boat.
Who acts: old, It, you, man, old people · What happens: man, look, break, see, mean, be · To what, where: boat, old people, verb · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of the lesson «Grammar puzzles, part one» of the language 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 (old, It, you, man), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 trap | det |
| 2 | classic | classic | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 trap | amod |
| 3 | trap | trap | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 looks | dep |
| 4 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 10 boat | punct |
| 5 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 8 man | punct |
| 6 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 old | det |
| 7 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 man | nsubj |
| 8 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 trap | appos |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 boat | det |
| 10 | boat | boat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 man | obj |
| 11 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 trap | punct |
| 12 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 14 looks | punct |
| 13 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 looks | nsubj |
| 14 | looks | look | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 15 | broken | break | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 14 looks | xcomp |
| 16 | until | until | SCONJ | _ | 18 see | mark |
| 17 | you | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 18 see | nsubj |
| 18 | see | see | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 14 looks | advcl |
| 19 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 24 means | mark |
| 20 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 22 old | punct |
| 21 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 old | det |
| 22 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 24 means | nsubj |
| 23 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 22 old | punct |
| 24 | means | mean | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 18 see | ccomp |
| 25 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 26 people | amod |
| 26 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 24 means | obj |
| 27 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 33 verb | cc |
| 28 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 29 man | punct |
| 29 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 33 verb | nsubj |
| 30 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 29 man | punct |
| 31 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 33 verb | cop |
| 32 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 33 verb | det |
| 33 | verb | verb | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 means | conj |
| 34 | ( | ( | PUNCT | _ | 36 crew | punct |
| 35 | to | to | PART | _ | 36 crew | mark |
| 36 | crew | crew | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 33 verb | parataxis |
| 37 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 38 boat | det |
| 38 | boat | boat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 36 crew | obj |
| 39 | ) | ) | PUNCT | _ | 36 crew | punct |
| 40 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 43 crew | punct |
| 41 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 42 people | amod |
| 42 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 43 crew | nsubj |
| 43 | crew | crew | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 14 looks | conj |
| 44 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 45 boat | det |
| 45 | boat | boat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 43 crew | obj |
| 46 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 14 looks | punct |
Pragmatics
- form
- statement
- act
- assert
- voice
- narrator
- polarity
- none
- teacher
- changed voice=narrator
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | man in a quote | the old | the boat | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | look | present | It | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | break | participle | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient | ||||||
| 4 | see | present | you | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus | |||||
| 5 | mean | present | the old | old people | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent people=Topic | ||||
| 6 | is a | present | man | the verb | tree rules | ||||
| 7 | crew | to-infinitive | a boat | vn captain-29.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boat=Beneficiary | |||||
| 8 | crew | present | old people | the boat | vn captain-29.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boat=Beneficiary |
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:language:011-grammar-puzzles-part-one.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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1, 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/language/11-grammar-puzzles-part-one/1/