Is there one proper English? The big arguments, sentence 2

Many "rules" are younger than you'd think: "ain't" was used by posh people in the 1700s before grammar books attacked it, and the "never split an infinitive" rule (no word between "to" and the verb, as in Star Trek's "to boldly go") was copied from Latin in the 1800s; most modern guides say "to boldly go" is fine.

Who acts: Many rules, you, posh people, grammar books, Star, most modern guides · What happens: be, think, not use, attack, not split, go · To what, where: 1700s, standard, infinitive, split rule, Latin · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (Many rules, you, posh people, grammar books), 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	Many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 rules	amod
2	"	"	PUNCT	_	3 rules	punct
3	rules	rule	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 younger	nsubj
4	"	"	PUNCT	_	3 rules	punct
5	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 younger	cop
6	younger	young	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	79 fine	parataxis
7	than	than	SCONJ	_	10 think	mark
8	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	10 think	nsubj
9	'd	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	10 think	aux
10	think	think	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 younger	advcl
11	:	:	PUNCT	_	17 used	punct
12	"	"	PUNCT	_	13 ai	punct
13	ai	ai	X	Foreign=Yes	14 n't	dep
14	n't	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	17 used	advmod
15	"	"	PUNCT	_	14 n't	punct
16	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 used	aux:pass
17	used	use	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	10 think	ccomp
18	by	by	ADP	_	20 people	case
19	posh	posh	ADJ	Degree=Pos	20 people	amod
20	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 used	obl:agent
21	in	in	ADP	_	23 1700s	case
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 1700s	det
23	1700s	1700	NOUN	Number=Ptan NumForm=Combi NumType=Card	17 used	obl
24	before	before	SCONJ	_	27 attacked	mark
25	grammar	grammar	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 books	compound
26	books	book	NOUN	Number=Plur	27 attacked	nsubj
27	attacked	attack	VERB	Mood=Ind Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 used	advcl
28	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 attacked	obj
29	,	,	PUNCT	_	38 rule	punct
30	and	and	CCONJ	_	38 rule	cc
31	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	38 rule	det
32	"	"	PUNCT	_	34 split	punct
33	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	34 split	advmod
34	split	split	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	38 rule	compound
35	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	36 infinitive	det
36	infinitive	infinitive	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 split	obj
37	"	"	PUNCT	_	34 split	punct
38	rule	rule	NOUN	Number=Sing	62 copied	nsubj:pass
39	(	(	PUNCT	_	41 word	punct
40	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	41 word	det
41	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	38 rule	appos
42	between	between	ADP	_	45 "	case
43	"	"	PUNCT	_	44 to	punct
44	to	to	PART	_	45 "	mark
45	"	"	PUNCT	_	41 word	punct
46	and	and	CCONJ	_	48 verb	cc
47	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	48 verb	det
48	verb	verb	NOUN	Number=Sing	41 word	conj
49	,	,	PUNCT	_	48 verb	punct
50	as	as	SCONJ	_	58 go	mark
51	in	in	ADP	_	52 Star	case
52	Star	Star	PROPN	Number=Sing	58 go	nsubj
53	Trek	Trek	PROPN	Number=Sing	52 Star	flat
54	's	's	PART	_	53 Trek	case
55	"	"	PUNCT	_	58 go	punct
56	to	to	PART	_	58 go	mark
57	boldly	boldly	ADV	Degree=Pos	58 go	advmod
58	go	go	NOUN	Number=Sing	41 word	appos
59	"	"	PUNCT	_	58 go	punct
60	)	)	PUNCT	_	41 word	punct
61	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	62 copied	aux:pass
62	copied	copy	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	17 used	conj
63	from	from	ADP	_	64 Latin	case
64	Latin	Latin	PROPN	Number=Sing	62 copied	obl
65	in	in	ADP	_	67 1800s	case
66	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	67 1800s	det
67	1800s	1800	NOUN	Number=Ptan NumForm=Combi NumType=Card	62 copied	obl
68	;	;	PUNCT	_	72 say	punct
69	most	most	ADJ	Degree=Sup	71 guides	amod
70	modern	modern	ADJ	Degree=Pos	71 guides	amod
71	guides	guide	NOUN	Number=Plur	72 say	nsubj
72	say	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	79 fine	parataxis
73	"	"	PUNCT	_	76 go	punct
74	to	to	PART	_	76 go	mark
75	boldly	boldly	ADV	Degree=Pos	76 go	advmod
76	go	go	NOUN	Number=Sing	79 fine	obl
77	"	"	PUNCT	_	76 go	punct
78	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	79 fine	cop
79	fine	fine	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
80	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 younger	punct

Pragmatics

No stored speech act for this sentence.

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is	present	Many rules			young property	tree rules
2	think speech: other	would	you				vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
3	not use	past · passive	posh people		the 1700s		vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	attack	past	grammar books	standard			vn attack-60.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient
5	not split in a quote	infinitive		a infinitive			vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent infinitive=Patient
6	go in a quote		Star			boldly property	tree rules
7	copy	past · passive		the split rule	Latin	in the 1800s	vn scribble-25.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme in 1800=Destination
8	say speech: assert	present	most modern guides				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
9	is	present				go obl; fine property	tree rules

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:2.

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 ×3, R6-punct-agree ×5, R7-rel-agree ×2. 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/2/