---
title: Small words do big jobs: chez moi means "at my house", à côté de mea… — My house and my home · tree and pragmatics
description: Small words do big jobs: chez moi means "at my house", à côté de means "next to", and you say à before a town but en before most countries, like J'habite à Cardiff, au pays de Galles. Who acts: Small words, chez, côté de, you. A sentence of the lesson «My house and my home» of the french course of M
---

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# My house and my home, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Small words do big jobs: chez moi means "at my house", à côté de means "next to", and you say à before a town but en before most countries, like J'habite à Cardiff, au pays de Galles.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Small words, chez, côté de, you · **What happens:** do, mean, say · **To what, where:** big jobs, house, à · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «My house and my home» 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 (Small words, chez, côté de, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:french:021-my-house-and-my-home.lesson:4
# text = Small words do big jobs: chez moi means "at my house", à côté de means "next to", and you say à before a town but en before most countries, like J'habite à Cardiff, au pays de Galles.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = french
# lesson = 021-my-house-and-my-home.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): R7-rel-agree ×1
1	Small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	jobs	job	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
7	chez	chez	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	moi	moi	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	flat	_	_
9	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=9:obj
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	à	à	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	côté	côté	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	de	de	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
20	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	_
21	next	next	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	fixed	_	_
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
26	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
27	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	conj	_	_
28	à	à	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obj	_	_
29	before	before	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	_
32	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
33	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	conj	_	_
34	before	before	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	most	most	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	36	amod	_	_
36	countries	country	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	nmod	_	_
37	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	41	punct	_	_
38	like	like	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
39	J'habite	j'habite	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	41	amod	_	_
40	à	à	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	41	compound	_	_
41	Cardiff	cardiff	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	nmod	_	_
42	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	44	punct	_	_
43	au	au	ADP	IN	_	44	case	_	_
44	pays	pay	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	41	appos	_	_
45	de	de	ADP	IN	_	46	case	_	_
46	Galles	Galles	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	44	nmod	_	_
47	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	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** | present | Small words | big jobs |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent job=Eventuality |
| 2 | **mean** | present | chez |  |  | my house |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **mean** | present | côté de |  |  |  |  | next *property* | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | you | à |  |  | before a town before most countries like J'habite à Cardiff but en |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent à=Topic |

<!-- .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:021-my-house-and-my-home.lesson:4`.

**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): R7-rel-agree ×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/).

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