Is there one proper English? The big arguments, sentence 15

The rule "fewer for things you can count" became popular in the late 1700s; some supermarkets were reported to have changed "10 items or less" signs to "Up to 10 items" to avoid the argument.

Who acts: you, rule · What happens: count, become, report, change, avoid · To what, where: things, late 1700s, supermarkets, 10 items, argument

This is a sentence of the lesson «Is there one proper English? The big arguments» 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 (you, rule), 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	2 rule	det
2	rule	rule	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 became	nsubj
3	"	"	PUNCT	_	4 fewer	punct
4	fewer	few	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 rule	appos
5	for	for	ADP	_	6 things	case
6	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 fewer	obl
7	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	9 count	nsubj
8	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 count	aux
9	count	count	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 things	acl:relcl
10	"	"	PUNCT	_	4 fewer	punct
11	became	become	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
12	popular	popular	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 became	xcomp
13	in	in	ADP	_	16 1700s	case
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 1700s	det
15	late	late	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 1700s	amod
16	1700s	1700	NOUN	Number=Ptan NumForm=Combi NumType=Card	11 became	obl
17	;	;	PUNCT	_	21 reported	punct
18	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	19 supermarkets	det
19	supermarkets	supermarket	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 reported	nsubj:pass
20	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 reported	aux:pass
21	reported	report	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	11 became	parataxis
22	to	to	PART	_	24 changed	mark
23	have	have	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	24 changed	aux
24	changed	change	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	21 reported	xcomp
25	"	"	PUNCT	_	27 items	punct
26	10	10	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	27 items	nummod
27	items	item	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 changed	obj
28	or	or	CCONJ	_	31 signs	cc
29	less	less	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	27 items	conj
30	"	"	PUNCT	_	29 less	punct
31	signs	sign	NOUN	Number=Plur	27 items	conj
32	to	to	PART	_	34 Up	mark
33	"	"	PUNCT	_	34 Up	punct
34	Up	Up	PROPN	Number=Sing	24 changed	advcl
35	to	to	ADP	_	37 items	case
36	10	10	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	37 items	nummod
37	items	item	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 changed	obl
38	"	"	PUNCT	_	37 items	punct
39	to	to	PART	_	40 avoid	mark
40	avoid	avoid	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 changed	advcl
41	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	42 argument	det
42	argument	argument	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 avoid	obj
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	11 became	punct

Pragmatics

form: statement
act: assert
voice: character
polarity: none
teacher: kept the draft

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	count in a quote	can	you	things not said here		vn multiply-108 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Theme
2	become	past	the rule		in the late 1700s result; popular property	vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in 1700=Result
3	report	past · passive		some supermarkets		vn characterize-29.2-1-2 «NP V NP to be ADJ»: subject=Theme clause=Attribute
4	change	to-infinitive · perfect		10 items or signs	to 10 items	vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent item=Patient
5	avoid	to-infinitive		the argument		vn avoid-52 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent argument=Location

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:020-is-there-one-proper-english.lesson:15.

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 ×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/language/20-is-there-one-proper-english/15/