---
title: English has 26 letters but about 44 sounds (the exact number changes… — Sounds and letters: how phonics starts · tree and pragmatics
description: English has 26 letters but about 44 sounds (the exact number changes a little with accent), so some sounds need a team of letters. Who acts: English, exact number, sounds. A sentence of the lesson «Sounds and letters: how phonics starts» of the english course of Mova's primary school with its depend
---

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# Sounds and letters: how phonics starts, sentence 6

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English has 26 letters but about 44 sounds (the exact number changes a little with accent), so some sounds need a team of letters.

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**Who acts:** English, exact number, sounds · **What happens:** have, change, need · **To what, where:** 26 letters, little, team

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Sounds and letters: how phonics starts» of the english 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 (English, exact number, sounds), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:english:001-sounds-and-letters-how-phonics-starts.lesson:6
# text = English has 26 letters but about 44 sounds (the exact number changes a little with accent), so some sounds need a team of letters.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = english
# lesson = 001-sounds-and-letters-how-phonics-starts.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 ×2
1	English	English	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	26	26	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	4	nummod	_	_
4	letters	letter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	about	about	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	44	44	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
8	sounds	sound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	_
9	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	13	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	exact	exact	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	changes	change	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	obl	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=13:obj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	accent	accent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
18	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	13	punct	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	so	so	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
21	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	22	det	_	_
22	sounds	sound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj	_	_
23	need	need	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:conj
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	team	team	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	letters	letter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	_
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	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 | **have** | present | English | 26 letters but 44 sounds |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent letter=Patient |
| 2 | **change** | present | the exact number | a little |  |  |  | with accent | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **need** | present | some sounds | a team of letters |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot team=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:english:001-sounds-and-letters-how-phonics-starts.lesson:6`.

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

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