---
title: The ending -er on a doing word, and the ending -ez, both say "ay": p… — Silent letters: why French doesn't say everythin… · tree and pragmatics
description: The ending -er on a doing word, and the ending -ez, both say "ay": parler (to speak) sounds like "par-LAY" and parlez like "par-LAY" too. Who acts: ending er, parler. A sentence of the lesson «Silent letters: why French doesn't say everything it writes» of the french course of Mova's primary school 
---

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# Silent letters: why French doesn't say everything it writes, sentence 9

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The ending -er on a doing word, and the ending -ez, both say "ay": parler (to speak) sounds like "par-LAY" and parlez like "par-LAY" too.

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**Who acts:** ending er, parler · **What happens:** do, say, speak, sound, parlez · **To what, where:** ay · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (ending er, parler), 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:9
# text = The ending -er on a doing word, and the ending -ez, both say "ay": parler (to speak) sounds like "par-LAY" and parlez like "par-LAY" too.
# 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): R6-punct-agree ×3
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	ending	ending	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=2:punct
4	er	er	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	doing	do	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	amod	_	_
8	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	ending	ending	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	_
14	ez	ez	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	both	both	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	_
19	ay	ay	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
21	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
22	parler	parler	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
23	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	25	punct	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	parataxis	_	_
26	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	25	punct	_	_
27	sounds	sound	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	parataxis	_	_
28	like	like	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	30	punct	_	_
30	par	par	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	_
31	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	32	punct	_	_
32	LAY	LAY	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	30	appos	_	_
33	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	32	punct	_	_
34	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
35	parlez	parlez	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	conj	_	_
36	like	like	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
37	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	40	punct	_	_
38	par	par	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	40	compound	_	_
39	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	40	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=38:punct
40	LAY	LAY	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	35	obl	_	_
41	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	40	punct	_	_
42	too	too	ADV	RB	_	35	advmod	_	_
43	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=4:punct
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | infinitive | the ending er on a doing word and the ending *not said here* | ay |  |  |  | both *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent ay=Topic |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **sound** | present | parler |  |  |  |  | like par | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 5 | **parlez** | present | parler *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like par LAY | tree rules |

<!-- .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:french:001-silent-letters-why-french-doesnt-say-everything-it-writes.lesson:9`.

**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): R6-punct-agree ×3. **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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