---
title: nín duō dà niánjì le? is the very polite way to ask an old person's… — Names and "how old are you?" · tree and pragmatics
description: nín duō dà niánjì le? is the very polite way to ask an old person's age; in Chinese culture it shows respectful interest. Who acts: nín duō, fall. A sentence of the lesson «Names and "how old are you?"» of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/5-names-and-how-old/14/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [Chinese street](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/) / [Names and "how old are you?"](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/5-names-and-how-old/) / 14

# Names and "how old are you?", sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
nín duō dà niánjì le? is the very polite way to ask an old person's age; in Chinese culture it shows respectful interest.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** nín duō, fall · **What happens:** be, ask, show · **To what, where:** polite way, age, respectful interest

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Names and "how old are you?"» 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 (nín duō, fall), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:chinese-street:005-names-and-how-old.lesson:14
# text = nín duō dà niánjì le? is the very polite way to ask an old person's age; in Chinese culture it shows respectful interest.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = chinese-street
# lesson = 005-names-and-how-old.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): no change
1	nín	nín	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	2	flat:foreign	_	_
2	duō	duō	X	GW	_	11	nsubj	_	_
3	dà	dà	X	GW	_	2	flat:foreign	_	_
4	niánjì	niánjì	X	GW	_	2	flat:foreign	_	_
5	le	le	X	NN	_	2	flat:foreign	_	_
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
7	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	very	very	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	polite	polite	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl	_	_
14	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod:poss	_	_
17	's	's	PART	POS	_	16	case	_	_
18	age	age	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
19	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	Chinese	Chinese	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	culture	culture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
24	shows	show	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	parataxis	_	_
25	respectful	respectful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	interest	interest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | nín duō | the polite way |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | to-infinitive |  | a old person's age |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent age=Recipient |
| 3 | **show** | present | fall | respectful interest |  |  |  | in Chinese culture | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP PP.recipient PP.theme»: agent=Agent interest=Patient in culture=Topic |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:005-names-and-how-old.lesson:14`.

**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): no change. **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 -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Names and "how old are you?", 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/5-names-and-how-old/13/)
- next →: [Names and "how old are you?", 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/5-names-and-how-old/15/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/5-names-and-how-old/)