---
title: à + a time means "at": Le cours commence à neuf heures (the lesson s… — Telling the time · tree and pragmatics
description: à + a time means "at": Le cours commence à neuf heures (the lesson starts at nine); neuf heures sounds like "nuh-VUR". Who acts: à, Le cours, lesson, neuf heures. A sentence of the lesson «Telling the time» of the french course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

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# Telling the time, sentence 11

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
à + a time means "at": Le cours commence à neuf heures (the lesson starts at nine); neuf heures sounds like "nuh-VUR".

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** à, Le cours, lesson, neuf heures · **What happens:** mean, commence, start, sound · **To what, where:** nine

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Telling the time» 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 (à, Le cours, lesson, neuf heures), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:french:012-telling-the-time.lesson:11
# text = à + a time means "at": Le cours commence à neuf heures (the lesson starts at nine); neuf heures sounds like "nuh-VUR".
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = french
# lesson = 012-telling-the-time.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): R1-cc-next ×1
1	à	à	X	FW	_	5	nsubj	_	_
2	+	+	SYM	SYM	_	4	cc	_	Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=1:cc
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	conj	_	_
5	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
10	Le	Le	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	cours	cour	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	commence	commence	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	à	à	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	neuf	neuf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	heures	heure	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
16	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	19	punct	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	lesson	lesson	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	starts	start	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	_
20	at	at	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	nine	nine	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	obl	_	_
22	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	19	punct	_	_
23	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
24	neuf	neuf	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	heures	heure	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	nsubj	_	_
26	sounds	sound	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
27	like	like	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
28	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	31	punct	_	_
29	nuh	nuh	INTJ	UH	_	31	discourse	_	_
30	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	31	punct	_	_
31	VUR	VUR	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
32	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	31	punct	_	_
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** | present | à + a time |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **commence** | present | Le cours |  |  |  |  | à neuf heures | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **start** | present | the lesson |  |  | nine |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 4 | **sound** | present | neuf heures |  |  |  |  | like VUR | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

<!-- .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:012-telling-the-time.lesson:11`.

**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): R1-cc-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 -->

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