---
title: Speech came long before writing, and in English letters and sounds o… — What language is: sounds, words and rules everyo… · tree and pragmatics
description: Speech came long before writing, and in English letters and sounds often do not match: "knee" has four letters but only two sounds, n and ee. Who acts: Speech, English letters, knee. A sentence of the lesson «What language is: sounds, words and rules everyone shares» of the language course of Mova's
---

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# What language is: sounds, words and rules everyone shares, sentence 16

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Speech came long before writing, and in English letters and sounds often do not match: "knee" has four letters but only two sounds, n and ee.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Speech, English letters, knee · **What happens:** come, not match, have · **To what, where:** writing, four letters

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «What language is: sounds, words and rules everyone shares» of the language 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 (Speech, English letters, knee), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:language:001-what-language-is-sounds-words-and-rules.lesson:16
# text = Speech came long before writing, and in English letters and sounds often do not match: "knee" has four letters but only two sounds, n and ee.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = language
# lesson = 001-what-language-is-sounds-words-and-rules.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): no change
1	Speech	speech	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	2	advmod	_	_
4	before	before	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	writing	writing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	English	English	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	letters	letter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	sounds	sound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	_
13	often	often	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
14	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	match	match	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	_
19	knee	knee	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
21	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	parataxis	_	_
22	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	23	nummod	_	_
23	letters	letter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	_
24	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
25	only	only	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
26	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	27	nummod	_	_
27	sounds	sound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	_
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
29	n	n	NOUN	NN	_	23	conj	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	ee	ee	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	conj	_	_
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | Speech |  |  | writing |  | long *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme before writing=Location |
| 2 | **not** **match** | present · do-support | English letters and sounds |  |  |  |  | often *property* | vn amalgamate-22.2-1 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **have** | present | knee | four letters but two sounds and n and ee |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent letter=Patient |

<!-- .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:language:001-what-language-is-sounds-words-and-rules.lesson:16`.

**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): no change. **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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