---
title: For missing letters, the apostrophe sits exactly where the letters v… — Apostrophes: missing letters and belonging · tree and pragmatics
description: For missing letters, the apostrophe sits exactly where the letters vanished: in "can't" it stands for the missing "no" of "cannot", like a sticky note saying "something was here". Who acts: apostrophe, letters, sticky note. A sentence of the lesson «Apostrophes: missing letters and belonging» of the
---

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# Apostrophes: missing letters and belonging, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
For missing letters, the apostrophe sits exactly where the letters vanished: in "can't" it stands for the missing "no" of "cannot", like a sticky note saying "something was here".

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** apostrophe, letters, sticky note · **What happens:** sit, vanish, stand, say, be · **To what, where:** ca, something · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Apostrophes: missing letters and belonging» 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 (apostrophe, letters, sticky note), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:english:034-apostrophes-missing-letters-and-belonging.lesson:1
# text = For missing letters, the apostrophe sits exactly where the letters vanished: in "can't" it stands for the missing "no" of "cannot", like a sticky note saying "something was here".
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = english
# lesson = 034-apostrophes-missing-letters-and-belonging.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 ×1
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	missing	missing	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	letters	letter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	apostrophe	apostrophe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	sits	sit	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	exactly	exactly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=12:advmod
9	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	12	advmod	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	letters	letter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	vanished	vanish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	_
16	ca	can	NOUN	NN	_	20	obl	_	_
17	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	stands	stand	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	_
21	for	for	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
23	missing	missing	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
24	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	_
25	no	no	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
26	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	25	punct	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	29	punct	_	_
29	can	can	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	_
30	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	29	advmod	_	_
31	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	29	punct	_	_
32	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	36	punct	_	_
33	like	like	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
34	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
35	sticky	sticky	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
36	note	note	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
37	saying	say	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	36	acl	_	_
38	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	39	punct	_	_
39	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	37	obj	_	_
40	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	41	cop	_	_
41	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	39	acl	_	_
42	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	41	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=39:punct
43	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | present | the apostrophe |  |  |  |  | for missing letters | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **vanish** | past | the letters |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **stand** | present | apostrophe |  |  | ca |  | for the missing no of can; like a sticky note | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in can=Location |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | a sticky note *not said here* | something |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent something=Topic |
| 5 | **is** *in a quote* | past |  |  |  |  |  | here *property* | 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:english:034-apostrophes-missing-letters-and-belonging.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): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-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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