--- title: "Could have" ("could've") plus a past form, as in "he could have hel… — Active and passive voice, modal verbs · tree and pragmatics description: "Could have" ("could've") plus a past form, as in "he could have helped", means he was able to but didn't. Who acts: passive. A sentence of the lesson «Active and passive voice, modal verbs» of the english course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/16/) [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/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / [Active and passive voice, modal verbs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/) / 16 # Active and passive voice, modal verbs, sentence 16 "Could have" ("could've") plus a past form, as in "he could have helped", means he was able to but didn't. **Who acts:** passive · **What happens:** have, help, mean, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Active and passive voice, modal verbs» 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 (passive), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:english:032-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs.lesson:16 # text = "Could have" ("could've") plus a past form, as in "he could have helped", means he was able to but didn't. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = english # lesson = 032-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs.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, R6-punct-agree ×3, R8-pos-agree ×2 1 " " PUNCT `` _ 3 punct _ _ 2 Could could AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 3 aux _ _ 3 have have VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 4 " " PUNCT '' _ 3 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=8:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:``:_ 5 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 8 punct _ _ 6 " " PUNCT `` _ 8 punct _ _ 7 could could AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 8 aux _ _ 8 've have AUX VB VerbForm=Inf 3 parataxis _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=3:parataxis|HaikuPos=AUX:VBP:Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 9 " " PUNCT '' _ 8 punct _ _ 10 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 3 punct _ _ 11 plus plus CCONJ CC _ 14 cc _ _ 12 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 14 det _ _ 13 past past ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 14 amod _ _ 14 form form NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 conj _ _ 15 , , PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 16 as as SCONJ IN _ 22 mark _ _ 17 in in ADP IN _ 16 fixed _ _ 18 " " PUNCT `` _ 22 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=16:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:'':_ 19 he he PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 22 nsubj _ _ 20 could could AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 22 aux _ _ 21 have have AUX VB VerbForm=Inf 22 aux _ _ 22 helped help VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part 3 parataxis _ _ 23 " " PUNCT '' _ 22 punct _ _ 24 , , PUNCT , _ 25 punct _ _ 25 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 parataxis _ _ 26 he he PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 28 nsubj _ _ 27 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 28 cop _ _ 28 able able ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 25 ccomp _ _ 29 to to PART TO _ 28 xcomp _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=31:mark 30 but but CCONJ CC _ 31 cc _ _ 31 did do AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 28 conj _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=28:conj|HaikuPos=VERB:VBD:Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 32 n't not PART RB Polarity=Neg 31 advmod _ _ 33 . . PUNCT . _ 25 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=3:punct ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed act=assert | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **have** *in a quote* | could | | | | | | | tree rules | | 2 | **help** *in a quote* | could · perfect | passive | | | | | | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **mean** | present | | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **is** | past | passive | | | | | able *property* | tree rules | 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:english:032-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs.lesson:16`. **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, R6-punct-agree ×3, R8-pos-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/). - ← previous: [Active and passive voice, modal verbs, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/15/) - next →: [Active and passive voice, modal verbs, 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/17/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/)