When a friend's mum or dad dies: what to say and do, sentence 0
When a friend's mum or dad dies, there are no perfect words, and most people are afraid of saying the wrong thing; but a small, honest «I'm really sorry about your mum» is far better than saying nothing and drifting away.
Who acts: mum, perfect words, most people · What happens: die, be, say, drift away · To what, where: wrong thing, nothing · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of the lesson «When a friend's mum or dad dies: what to say and do» of the religion ethics 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 (mum, perfect words, most people), 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 | When | when | SCONJ | _ | 8 dies | mark |
| 2 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 3 friend | det |
| 3 | friend | friend | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 mum | nmod:poss |
| 4 | 's | 's | PART | _ | 3 friend | case |
| 5 | mum | mum | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 dies | nsubj |
| 6 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 7 dad | cc |
| 7 | dad | dad | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 mum | conj |
| 8 | dies | die | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 11 are | advcl |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 are | punct |
| 10 | there | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 11 are | expl |
| 11 | are | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 12 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 14 words | det |
| 13 | perfect | perfect | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 words | amod |
| 14 | words | word | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 are | nsubj |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 20 afraid | punct |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 20 afraid | cc |
| 17 | most | most | ADJ | Degree=Sup | 18 people | amod |
| 18 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 20 afraid | nsubj |
| 19 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 20 afraid | cop |
| 20 | afraid | afraid | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 are | conj |
| 21 | of | of | SCONJ | _ | 22 saying | mark |
| 22 | saying | say | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 20 afraid | advcl |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 25 thing | det |
| 24 | wrong | wrong | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 25 thing | amod |
| 25 | thing | thing | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 saying | obj |
| 26 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 36 sorry | punct |
| 27 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 36 sorry | cc |
| 28 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 36 sorry | det |
| 29 | small | small | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 36 sorry | amod |
| 30 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 29 small | punct |
| 31 | honest | honest | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 36 sorry | advcl |
| 32 | « | « | PUNCT | _ | 36 sorry | punct |
| 33 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 36 sorry | nsubj |
| 34 | 'm | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 36 sorry | cop |
| 35 | really | really | ADV | _ | 36 sorry | advmod |
| 36 | sorry | sorry | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 are | conj |
| 37 | about | about | SCONJ | _ | 43 better | mark |
| 38 | your | your | PRON | Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 39 mum | nmod:poss |
| 39 | mum | mum | NOUN | Number=Sing | 36 sorry | obl |
| 40 | » | » | PUNCT | _ | 36 sorry | punct |
| 41 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 43 better | cop |
| 42 | far | far | ADV | Degree=Pos | 43 better | advmod |
| 43 | better | good | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 11 are | conj |
| 44 | than | than | SCONJ | _ | 45 saying | mark |
| 45 | saying | say | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 43 better | advcl |
| 46 | nothing | nothing | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | 45 saying | obj |
| 47 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 48 drifting | cc |
| 48 | drifting | drift | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 45 saying | conj |
| 49 | away | away | ADV | _ | 48 drifting | advmod |
| 50 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 11 are | punct |
Pragmatics
No stored speech act for this sentence.
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | die | present | a friend's mum or dad | vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute | |||||
| 2 | does | present | no perfect words | there | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 3 | is | present | most people | afraid property | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | say speech: assert | gerund | most people not said here | the wrong thing | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent thing=Topic | ||||
| 5 | is in a quote | present | no perfect words = word | your mum obl; sorry property | tree rules | ||||
| 6 | is | present | no perfect words not said here | far, good property | tree rules | ||||
| 7 | say speech: assert | gerund | no perfect words not said here | nothing | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic | ||||
| 8 | drift away | gerund | no perfect words not said here | away property | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
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:religion-ethics:061-when-a-friends-mum-or-dad-dies-what-to-say-and-do.lesson:0.
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): R1-cc-next ×2, R3-conj-first ×1, R5-strong ×2, R6-punct-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/religion-ethics/61-when-a-friends-mum-or-dad-dies-what-to-say-and-do/0/