---
title: A man near the shops in Toronto said to Grace, «Your dad's my best f… — A stranger's story · tree and pragmatics
description: A man near the shops in Toronto said to Grace, «Your dad's my best friend, he told me to give you a ride home.» He knew her dad's name — he'd read it on the tag of her school bag. Who acts: man, dad. A sentence of the lesson «A stranger's story» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school with i
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/446-a-strangers-story/12/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [Everyday](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/) / [A stranger's story](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/446-a-strangers-story/) / 12

# A stranger's story, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A man near the shops in Toronto said to Grace, «Your dad's my best friend, he told me to give you a ride home.» He knew her dad's name — he'd read it on the tag of her school bag.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man, dad · **What happens:** say, be, tell, give, know, read · **To what, where:** Grace, best friend, man, ride, name, tag · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «A stranger's story» 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 (man, dad), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:446-a-strangers-story.lesson:12
# text = A man near the shops in Toronto said to Grace, «Your dad's my best friend, he told me to give you a ride home.» He knew her dad's name — he'd read it on the tag of her school bag.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 446-a-strangers-story.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): R2-punct-next ×1
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	near	near	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	shops	shop	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	Toronto	Toronto	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	Grace	Grace	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
12	«	«	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	_
13	Your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	dad	dad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
15	's	be	AUX	VBZ	_	18	cop	_	_
16	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
17	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	18	amod	_	_
18	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=18:punct
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
22	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	iobj	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
25	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	24	iobj	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	ride	ride	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
28	home	home	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
30	»	»	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
31	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	nsubj	_	_
32	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
33	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	34	nmod:poss	_	_
34	dad	dad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	nmod:poss	_	_
35	's	's	PART	POS	_	34	case	_	_
36	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obj	_	_
37	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	40	punct	_	_
38	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	40	nsubj	_	_
39	'd	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	40	aux	_	_
40	read	read	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	32	conj	_	_
41	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	40	obj	_	_
42	on	on	ADP	IN	_	44	case	_	_
43	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	44	det	_	_
44	tag	tag	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	40	obl	_	_
45	of	of	ADP	IN	_	48	case	_	_
46	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	48	nmod:poss	_	_
47	school	school	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	48	compound	_	_
48	bag	bag	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	44	nmod	_	_
49	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a man near the shops in Toronto |  | Grace |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to grace=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | Your dad | my best friend |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | dad |  | a man near the shops in Toronto *= man* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **give** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | dad *not said here* | a ride | Grace |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient ride=Theme |
| 5 | **know** | past | dad | Grace's dad's name |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer name=Stimulus |
| 6 | **read** | would | man | name |  | the tag of Grace's school bag |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic |
| 7 | **name** |  | Grace's dad |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent |
| 8 | **tag** |  |  | Grace's school bag |  |  |  |  | nom tag «communication transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:446-a-strangers-story.lesson:12`.

**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): R2-punct-next ×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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [A stranger's story, 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/446-a-strangers-story/11/)
- next →: [A stranger's story, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/446-a-strangers-story/13/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/446-a-strangers-story/)