---
title: A dialect is a variety of a language with its own words and grammar,… — Standard English and dialect: "we was" in talk,… · tree and pragmatics
description: A dialect is a variety of a language with its own words and grammar, spoken by a group or in a place. Who acts: dialect. A sentence of the lesson «Standard English and dialect: "we was" in talk, "we were" in writing» of the english course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pra
---

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# Standard English and dialect: "we was" in talk, "we were" in writing, sentence 5

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A dialect is a variety of a language with its own words and grammar, spoken by a group or in a place.

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**Who acts:** dialect · **What happens:** be, speak, word · **To what, where:** variety, own words · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Standard English and dialect: "we was" in talk, "we were" in writing» 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 (dialect), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:english:038-standard-english-and-dialect-we-was-and-we-were.lesson:5
# text = A dialect is a variety of a language with its own words and grammar, spoken by a group or in a place.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = english
# lesson = 038-standard-english-and-dialect-we-was-and-we-were.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	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	dialect	dialect	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	variety	variety	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	grammar	grammar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	spoken	speak	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	acl	_	_
17	by	by	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	group	group	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
20	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	_
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | a dialect | a variety |  |  |  | of a language with dialect's own words and grammar | tree rules |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | participle |  | dialect's own words and grammar *not said here* |  |  |  | by a group or a place | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **word** |  | dialect |  |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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:038-standard-english-and-dialect-we-was-and-we-were.lesson:5`.

**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/).

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- ← previous: [Standard English and dialect: "we was"…, 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/38-standard-english-and-dialect-we-was-and-we-were/4/)
- next →: [Standard English and dialect: "we was"…, 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/38-standard-english-and-dialect-we-was-and-we-were/6/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/38-standard-english-and-dialect-we-was-and-we-were/)