--- title: A reference is a short message from a past employer or teacher sayin… — Finding a job and getting on · tree and pragmatics description: A reference is a short message from a past employer or teacher saying the person was reliable; it is why grown-ups try to leave jobs politely. Who acts: reference, short message, person, grown ups. A sentence of the lesson «Finding a job and getting on» of the adult life course of Mova's primary sch --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/3-finding-a-job-and-getting-on/15/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Adult life](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/) / [Finding a job and getting on](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/3-finding-a-job-and-getting-on/) / 15 # Finding a job and getting on, sentence 15 A reference is a short message from a past employer or teacher saying the person was reliable; it is why grown-ups try to leave jobs politely. **Who acts:** reference, short message, person, grown ups · **What happens:** be, say, grow, try, leave · **To what, where:** short message, past employer, jobs · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Finding a job and getting on» of the adult life 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 (reference, short message, person, grown ups), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:adult-life:003-finding-a-job-and-getting-on.lesson:15 # text = A reference is a short message from a past employer or teacher saying the person was reliable; it is why grown-ups try to leave jobs politely. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = adult-life # lesson = 003-finding-a-job-and-getting-on.lesson # annotation = 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 ×1 1 A a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 2 det _ _ 2 reference reference NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 nsubj _ _ 3 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 6 cop _ _ 4 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 5 short short ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 amod _ _ 6 message message NOUN NN Number=Sing 0 root _ _ 7 from from ADP IN _ 10 case _ _ 8 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 10 det _ _ 9 past past ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 10 amod _ _ 10 employer employer NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 nmod _ _ 11 or or CCONJ CC _ 12 cc _ _ 12 teacher teacher NOUN NN Number=Sing 10 conj _ _ 13 saying say VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 6 acl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=10:acl 14 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 15 det _ _ 15 person person NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 nsubj _ _ 16 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 17 cop _ _ 17 reliable reliable ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 ccomp _ _ 18 ; ; PUNCT : _ 25 punct _ _ 19 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 21 nsubj _ _ 20 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 21 cop _ _ 21 why why ADV WRB PronType=Int 25 advmod _ _ 22 grown grow VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 24 amod _ _ 23 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 22 punct _ _ 24 ups up NOUN NNS Number=Plur 25 nsubj _ _ 25 try try VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 6 parataxis _ _ 26 to to PART TO _ 27 mark _ _ 27 leave leave VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 25 xcomp _ _ 28 jobs job NOUN NNS Number=Plur 27 obj _ _ 29 politely politely ADV RB _ 27 advmod _ _ 30 . . PUNCT . _ 6 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **is a** | present | a reference | a short message | | a past employer or teacher | | | tree rules | | 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | a short message *not said here* | | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **is** | past | the person | | | | | reliable *property* | tree rules | | 4 | **is** | present | person | | | | | why *property* | tree rules | | 5 | **grow** | participle | | | | | | | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 6 | **try** | infinitive | grown ups | | | | | | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | | 7 | **leave** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | grown ups *not said here* | jobs | | | | politely *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent job=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](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/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:adult-life:003-finding-a-job-and-getting-on.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 ×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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/). - ← previous: [Finding a job and getting on, 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/3-finding-a-job-and-getting-on/14/) - next →: [Finding a job and getting on, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/3-finding-a-job-and-getting-on/16/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/3-finding-a-job-and-getting-on/)