---
title: Most words are arbitrary: the link between a word and its meaning is… — What language is: sounds, words and rules everyo… · tree and pragmatics
description: Most words are arbitrary: the link between a word and its meaning is a habit of the speakers, not something in nature. Who acts: Most words, link. A sentence of the lesson «What language is: sounds, words and rules everyone shares» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency 
---

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# What language is: sounds, words and rules everyone shares, sentence 7

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Most words are arbitrary: the link between a word and its meaning is a habit of the speakers, not something in nature.

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**Who acts:** Most words, link · **What happens:** be, mean · **To what, where:** habit

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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, link), 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:7
# text = Most words are arbitrary: the link between a word and its meaning is a habit of the speakers, not something in nature.
# 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	4	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	arbitrary	arbitrary	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	link	link	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
8	between	between	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	meaning	meaning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	habit	habit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	speakers	speaker	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	19	appos	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	nature	nature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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No stored speech act for this sentence.

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Most words |  |  |  |  | arbitrary *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | present | the link between a word and link's meaning | a habit |  |  |  | of the speakers | tree rules |
| 3 | **mean** |  | link |  |  |  |  |  | nom meaning «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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:language:001-what-language-is-sounds-words-and-rules.lesson:7`.

**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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