---
title: When kids ask, he says, «Never met him,» and shrugs. — Mum on her own, Dad on his own · tree and pragmatics
description: When kids ask, he says, «Never met him,» and shrugs. Who acts: kids, Zach. A sentence of the lesson «Mum on her own, Dad on his own» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/515-mum-on-her-own-dad-on-his-own/17/)

<!-- 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/) / [Mum on her own, Dad on his own](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/515-mum-on-her-own-dad-on-his-own/) / 17

# Mum on her own, Dad on his own, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When kids ask, he says, «Never met him,» and shrugs.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** kids, Zach · **What happens:** ask, say, not meet, shrug · **To what, where:** Zach · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Mum on her own, Dad on his own» 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 (kids, Zach), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:515-mum-on-her-own-dad-on-his-own.lesson:17
# text = When kids ask, he says, «Never met him,» and shrugs.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 515-mum-on-her-own-dad-on-his-own.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	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	3	mark	_	_
2	kids	kid	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	«	«	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	_
9	Never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
13	»	»	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	shrugs	shrug	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed act=narrate

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | present | kids |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Zach |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **meet** *in a quote* | past |  | Zach |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Co-Agent |
| 4 | **shrug** | present | Zach *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V»: agent=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.

<!-- 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:515-mum-on-her-own-dad-on-his-own.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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Mum on her own, Dad on his own, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/515-mum-on-her-own-dad-on-his-own/16/)
- next →: [Mum on her own, Dad on his own, 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/515-mum-on-her-own-dad-on-his-own/18/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/515-mum-on-her-own-dad-on-his-own/)