--- title: The letter h is never breathed out in French, so when a puffing Engl… — Silent letters: why French doesn't say everythin… · tree and pragmatics description: The letter h is never breathed out in French, so when a puffing English kid says "HO-tel" in Nice, the French say "oh-TEL", as if the h were invisible. Who acts: puffing English kid, French, h. A sentence of the lesson «Silent letters: why French doesn't say everything it writes» of the french cours --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/1-silent-letters-why-french-doesnt-say-everything-it-writes/5/) [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/) / [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/) / [Silent letters: why French doesn't say…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/1-silent-letters-why-french-doesnt-say-everything-it-writes/) / 5 # Silent letters: why French doesn't say everything it writes, sentence 5 The letter h is never breathed out in French, so when a puffing English kid says "HO-tel" in Nice, the French say "oh-TEL", as if the h were invisible. **Who acts:** puffing English kid, French, h · **What happens:** not breathe out, say, be · **To what, where:** letter, French, Nice, TEL · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Silent letters: why French doesn't say everything it writes» of the french 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 (puffing English kid, French, h), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:french:001-silent-letters-why-french-doesnt-say-everything-it-writes.lesson:5 # text = The letter h is never breathed out in French, so when a puffing English kid says "HO-tel" in Nice, the French say "oh-TEL", as if the h were invisible. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = french # lesson = 001-silent-letters-why-french-doesnt-say-everything-it-writes.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 ×2, R6-punct-agree ×2 1 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 2 det _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=3:det 2 letter letter NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 nsubj:pass _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=3:compound 3 h h NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 nsubj:pass _ _ 4 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 6 aux:pass _ _ 5 never never ADV RB PronType=Neg 6 advmod _ _ 6 breathed breathe VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 0 root _ _ 7 out out ADP RP _ 6 compound:prt _ _ 8 in in ADP IN _ 9 case _ _ 9 French French PROPN NNP Number=Sing 6 obl _ _ 10 , , PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ _ 11 so so ADV RB _ 17 advmod _ _ 12 when when ADV WRB PronType=Int 17 advmod _ _ 13 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 16 det _ _ 14 puffing puffing ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 16 amod _ _ 15 English English ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 16 amod _ _ 16 kid kid NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 nsubj _ _ 17 says say VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 18 " " PUNCT `` _ 21 punct _ _ 19 HO HO PROPN NNP Number=Sing 21 compound _ _ 20 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 21 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=19:punct 21 tel tel NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 parataxis _ _ 22 " " PUNCT '' _ 21 punct _ _ 23 in in ADP IN _ 24 case _ _ 24 Nice Nice PROPN NNP Number=Sing 17 obl _ _ 25 , , PUNCT , _ 28 punct _ _ 26 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 27 det _ _ 27 French French ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 28 nsubj _ _ 28 say say VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 17 parataxis _ _ 29 " " PUNCT `` _ 32 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=28:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:'':_ 30 oh oh INTJ UH _ 32 discourse _ _ 31 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 30 punct _ _ 32 TEL tel NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 obj _ _ 33 " " PUNCT '' _ 32 punct _ _ 34 , , PUNCT , _ 40 punct _ _ 35 as as SCONJ IN _ 40 mark _ _ 36 if if SCONJ IN _ 40 mark _ _ 37 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 38 det _ _ 38 h h NOUN NN Number=Sing 40 nsubj _ _ 39 were be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 40 cop _ _ 40 invisible invisible ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 conj _ _ 41 . . PUNCT . _ 6 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **not** **breathe out** | present · passive | | the letter | | French | | | vn breathe-40.1.2-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme | | 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | a puffing English kid | | | Nice | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | the French | TEL | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent tel=Topic | | 4 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | the h | | | | | invisible *property* | tree rules | 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. **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:french:001-silent-letters-why-french-doesnt-say-everything-it-writes.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): R5-strong ×2, R6-punct-agree ×2. **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/). - ← previous: [Silent letters: why French doesn't say…, 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/1-silent-letters-why-french-doesnt-say-everything-it-writes/4/) - next →: [Silent letters: why French doesn't say…, 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/1-silent-letters-why-french-doesnt-say-everything-it-writes/6/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/1-silent-letters-why-french-doesnt-say-everything-it-writes/)