--- title: Most words have no natural link to what they mean: English says "cat… — What language is: sounds, words and rules everyo… · tree and pragmatics description: Most words have no natural link to what they mean: English says "cat", Ukrainian says "кіт", and neither is the cat's true name; each group of speakers simply agreed long ago. Who acts: Most words, word, English, Ukrainian. A sentence of the lesson «What language is: sounds, words and rules everyone --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/1-what-language-is-sounds-words-and-rules/2/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / [What language is: sounds, words and ru…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/1-what-language-is-sounds-words-and-rules/) / 2 # What language is: sounds, words and rules everyone shares, sentence 2 Most words have no natural link to what they mean: English says "cat", Ukrainian says "кіт", and neither is the cat's true name; each group of speakers simply agreed long ago. **Who acts:** Most words, word, English, Ukrainian, neither, group · **What happens:** have, mean, say, be, agree · **To what, where:** natural link, cat, кіт, true name · **Speech:** someone speaks here 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 (Most words, word, English, Ukrainian), 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:2 # text = Most words have no natural link to what they mean: English says "cat", Ukrainian says "кіт", and neither is the cat's true name; each group of speakers simply agreed long ago. # 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 Most most ADJ JJS Degree=Sup 2 amod _ _ 2 words word NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ _ 3 have have VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 no no DET DT PronType=Neg 6 det _ _ 5 natural natural ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 amod _ _ 6 link link NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 obj _ _ 7 to to ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 8 what what PRON WP PronType=Rel 6 nmod _ _ 9 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 10 nsubj _ _ 10 mean mean VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 8 acl:relcl _ _ 11 : : PUNCT : _ 13 punct _ _ 12 English English PROPN NNP Number=Sing 13 nsubj _ _ 13 says say VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 parataxis _ _ 14 " " PUNCT `` _ 15 punct _ _ 15 cat cat NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 obj _ _ 16 " " PUNCT '' _ 15 punct _ _ 17 , , PUNCT , _ 19 punct _ _ 18 Ukrainian Ukrainian PROPN NNP Number=Sing 19 nsubj _ _ 19 says say VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ _ 20 " " PUNCT `` _ 21 punct _ _ 21 кіт кіт NOUN NN Number=Sing 19 obj _ _ 22 " " PUNCT '' _ 21 punct _ _ 23 , , PUNCT , _ 31 punct _ _ 24 and and CCONJ CC _ 31 cc _ _ 25 neither neither PRON DT PronType=Neg 31 nsubj _ _ 26 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 31 cop _ _ 27 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 28 det _ _ 28 cat cat NOUN NN Number=Sing 31 nmod:poss _ _ 29 's 's PART POS _ 28 case _ _ 30 true true ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 31 amod _ _ 31 name name NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 conj _ _ 32 ; ; PUNCT , _ 34 punct _ _ 33 each each DET DT PronType=Tot 34 det _ _ 34 group group NOUN NN Number=Sing 38 nsubj _ _ 35 of of ADP IN _ 36 case _ _ 36 speakers speaker NOUN NNS Number=Plur 34 nmod _ _ 37 simply simply ADV RB _ 38 advmod _ _ 38 agreed agree VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 3 parataxis _ _ 39 long long ADV RB Degree=Pos 40 advmod _ _ 40 ago ago ADV RB _ 38 advmod _ _ 41 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **have** | present | Most words | no natural link | | | | | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent link=Patient | | 2 | **mean** | present | word | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | English | cat | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent cat=Topic | | 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Ukrainian | кіт | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent кіт=Topic | | 5 | **is a** | present | neither | the cat's true name | | | | | tree rules | | 6 | **agree** *speech: agree* | past | each group of speakers | | | | | ago, simply *property* | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | 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. **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:2`. **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/). - ← previous: [What language is: sounds, words and ru…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/1-what-language-is-sounds-words-and-rules/1/) - next →: [What language is: sounds, words and ru…, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/1-what-language-is-sounds-words-and-rules/3/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/1-what-language-is-sounds-words-and-rules/)