---
title: That is why Ming falls about laughing when you ask for táng (sweets)… — The four tones: same sound, different meaning · tree and pragmatics
description: That is why Ming falls about laughing when you ask for táng (sweets) instead of tāng (soup), or count shǐ (poo) instead of shí (ten). Who acts: That, Ming, you. A sentence of the lesson «The four tones: same sound, different meaning» of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school with its dep
---

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# The four tones: same sound, different meaning, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
That is why Ming falls about laughing when you ask for táng (sweets) instead of tāng (soup), or count shǐ (poo) instead of shí (ten).

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** That, Ming, you · **What happens:** be, fall, laugh, ask, count · **To what, where:** shǐ

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «The four tones: same sound, different meaning» of the chinese street 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 (That, Ming, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:chinese-street:002-the-four-tones.lesson:3
# text = That is why Ming falls about laughing when you ask for táng (sweets) instead of tāng (soup), or count shǐ (poo) instead of shí (ten).
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = chinese-street
# lesson = 002-the-four-tones.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): R7-rel-agree ×1
1	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	0	root	_	_
4	Ming	Ming	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	falls	fall	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl:relcl	_	_
6	about	about	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
7	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	advcl	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=5:xcomp
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	táng	táng	NOUN	NN	_	10	obl	_	_
13	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	14	punct	_	_
14	sweets	sweet	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	appos	_	_
15	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	14	punct	_	_
16	instead	instead	ADV	RB	ExtPos=SCONJ	18	mark	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	fixed	_	_
18	tāng	tāng	NOUN	NN	_	12	conj	_	_
19	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	20	punct	_	_
20	soup	soup	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	appos	_	_
21	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	20	punct	_	_
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	count	count	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
25	shǐ	shǐ	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
26	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	27	punct	_	_
27	poo	poo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	appos	_	_
28	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	27	punct	_	_
29	instead	instead	ADV	RB	ExtPos=ADP	31	case	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	fixed	_	_
31	shí	shí	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
32	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	33	punct	_	_
33	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	31	appos	_	_
34	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	33	punct	_	_
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed polarity=none

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | That |  |  |  |  | why *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **fall** | present | Ming |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **laugh** | gerund | Ming *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **ask** *speech: ask* | present | you |  |  |  |  | for táng and tāng | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **count** | present | you *not said here* | shǐ |  |  |  | instead shí | vn multiply-108 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shǐ=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

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**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:chinese-street:002-the-four-tones.lesson:3`.

**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): 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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/).

<!-- /div -->

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