---
title: Before a vowel the silent s of les and des is said as z: les enfants… — Plurals: les, des and silent s · tree and pragmatics
description: Before a vowel the silent s of les and des is said as z: les enfants ("lay-zahn-FAHN"), des oranges. A sentence of the lesson «Plurals: les, des and silent s» of the french course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Plurals: les, des and silent s, sentence 11

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Before a vowel the silent s of les and des is said as z: les enfants ("lay-zahn-FAHN"), des oranges.

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**What happens:** say, lay · **To what, where:** silent s, zahn · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Plurals: les, des and silent s» 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: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:french:026-plurals-les-des-and-silent-s.lesson:11
# text = Before a vowel the silent s of les and des is said as z: les enfants ("lay-zahn-FAHN"), des oranges.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = french
# lesson = 026-plurals-les-des-and-silent-s.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 ×1
1	Before	before	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	vowel	vowel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=5:det
5	silent	silent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	s	s	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	les	le	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	des	des	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
13	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	z	z	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
16	les	le	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	compound	_	_
17	enfants	enfant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	appos	_	_
18	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	20	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	_
20	lay	lay	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	17	appos	_	_
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	_
22	zahn	zahn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	24	punct	_	_
24	FAHN	FAHN	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	appos	_	_
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	24	punct	_	_
26	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	20	punct	_	_
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
28	des	des	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	_
29	oranges	orange	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	conj	_	_
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present · passive |  | the silent s of les and des |  |  | before a vowel | as z | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: subject=Topic |
| 2 | **lay** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | zahn |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent zahn=Result |

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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:026-plurals-les-des-and-silent-s.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): R5-strong ×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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- ← previous: [Plurals: les, des and silent s, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/26-plurals-les-des-and-silent-s/10/)
- next →: [Plurals: les, des and silent s, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/26-plurals-les-des-and-silent-s/12/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/26-plurals-les-des-and-silent-s/)