---
title: In Mandarin he is always older (gēge) or younger (dìdi), and a siste… — Family: mum, dad, brothers and sisters · tree and pragmatics
description: In Mandarin he is always older (gēge) or younger (dìdi), and a sister is jiějie (older) or mèimei (younger). Who acts: Mandarin, sister. A sentence of the lesson «Family: mum, dad, brothers and sisters» of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics
---

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# Family: mum, dad, brothers and sisters, sentence 1

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In Mandarin he is always older (gēge) or younger (dìdi), and a sister is jiějie (older) or mèimei (younger).

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**Who acts:** Mandarin, sister · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** Mandarin, jiějie

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Family: mum, dad, brothers and sisters» 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 (Mandarin, sister), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:chinese-street:009-family-mum-dad-brothers-sisters.lesson:1
# text = In Mandarin he is always older (gēge) or younger (dìdi), and a sister is jiějie (older) or mèimei (younger).
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = chinese-street
# lesson = 009-family-mum-dad-brothers-sisters.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	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	Mandarin	Mandarin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	6	advmod	_	_
6	older	old	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
7	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	8	punct	_	_
8	gēge	gēge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=6:obl
9	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	8	punct	_	_
10	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	younger	young	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	6	conj	_	_
12	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	13	punct	_	_
13	dìdi	dìdi	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	appos	_	_
14	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	13	punct	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	jiějie	jiějie	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
21	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	22	punct	_	_
22	older	old	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	20	parataxis	_	_
23	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	22	punct	_	_
24	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
25	mèimei	mèimei	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	27	dep	_	_
26	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	27	punct	_	_
27	younger	young	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	22	conj	_	_
28	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	27	punct	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	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** | present | Mandarin |  |  | Mandarin |  | always, old *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | Mandarin *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | present | a sister | jiějie |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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:009-family-mum-dad-brothers-sisters.lesson:1`.

**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/).

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