---
title: A boy in Ohio was so keen to be polite that he answered every questi… — Greeting adults and teachers · tree and pragmatics
description: A boy in Ohio was so keen to be polite that he answered every question from a friendly man at the park, including his address; the man turned up near his house, and his parents had to call the police. Who acts: boy, man, parents. A sentence of the lesson «Greeting adults and teachers» of the everyda
---

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# Greeting adults and teachers, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A boy in Ohio was so keen to be polite that he answered every question from a friendly man at the park, including his address; the man turned up near his house, and his parents had to call the police.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** boy, man, parents · **What happens:** be, answer, turn up, have, call, address · **To what, where:** question, house, police · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Greeting adults and teachers» of the everyday 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 (boy, man, parents), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:121-greeting-adults-and-teachers.lesson:17
# text = A boy in Ohio was so keen to be polite that he answered every question from a friendly man at the park, including his address; the man turned up near his house, and his parents had to call the police.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 121-greeting-adults-and-teachers.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	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	Ohio	Ohio	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	keen	keen	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	cop	_	_
10	polite	polite	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	xcomp	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
14	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	det	_	_
15	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	friendly	friendly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
20	at	at	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	park	park	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	_
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
24	including	include	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	address	address	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	_
27	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	30	punct	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nsubj	_	_
30	turned	turn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
31	up	up	ADP	RP	_	30	compound:prt	_	_
32	near	near	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	34	nmod:poss	_	_
34	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	_
35	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	39	punct	_	_
36	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
37	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	38	nmod:poss	_	_
38	parents	parent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	39	nsubj	_	_
39	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	30	conj	_	_
40	to	to	PART	TO	_	41	mark	_	_
41	call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	39	xcomp	_	_
42	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	43	det	_	_
43	police	police	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	41	obj	_	_
44	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	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** | past | a boy in Ohio |  |  |  |  | keen *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | to-infinitive | a boy in Ohio *not said here* |  |  |  |  | polite *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | boy | every question |  |  |  | from a friendly man at the park and boy's address | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent question=Eventuality |
| 4 | **turn up** | past | the man |  |  | boy's house |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme near house=Location |
| 5 | **have** | past | boy's parents |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **call** | to-infinitive | boy's parents *not said here* | the police |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent police=Recipient |
| 7 | **address** |  | boy |  |  |  |  |  | nom address «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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:everyday:121-greeting-adults-and-teachers.lesson:17`.

**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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