---
title: In the west of Scotland weans are children, and bairns are children… — Plurals that make no sense: mice, sheep and geese · tree and pragmatics
description: In the west of Scotland weans are children, and bairns are children in Scotland and the North East of England; "baltic" is Scottish slang for freezing cold, and "oot" means out. Who acts: weans, bairns, baltic, Scottish slang. A sentence of the lesson «Plurals that make no sense: mice, sheep and gee
---

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# Plurals that make no sense: mice, sheep and geese, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In the west of Scotland weans are children, and bairns are children in Scotland and the North East of England; "baltic" is Scottish slang for freezing cold, and "oot" means out.

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**Who acts:** weans, bairns, baltic, Scottish slang, oot · **What happens:** be, freeze, mean · **To what, where:** children, west, Scotland, Scottish slang

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Plurals that make no sense: mice, sheep and geese» 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 (weans, bairns, baltic, Scottish slang), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:language:010-plurals-mice-sheep-and-geese.lesson:15
# text = In the west of Scotland weans are children, and bairns are children in Scotland and the North East of England; "baltic" is Scottish slang for freezing cold, and "oot" means out.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = language
# lesson = 010-plurals-mice-sheep-and-geese.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	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	west	west	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	Scotland	Scotland	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
6	weans	wean	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
7	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	bairns	bairn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
12	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	conj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	Scotland	Scotland	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	North	North	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=19:amod
19	East	East	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	England	England	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	_
22	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
23	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	24	punct	_	_
24	baltic	baltic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	nsubj	_	_
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	24	punct	_	_
26	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
27	Scottish	Scottish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	slang	slang	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	parataxis	_	_
29	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	30	mark	_	_
30	freezing	freeze	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	28	acl	_	_
31	cold	cold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	xcomp	_	_
32	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	37	punct	_	_
33	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	37	cc	_	_
34	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	35	punct	_	_
35	oot	oot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	nsubj	_	_
36	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	35	punct	_	_
37	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
38	out	out	ADV	RB	_	37	obj	_	_
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed polarity=none

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | weans | children and children |  | the west of Scotland |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | present | bairns | children |  | Scotland and the North East of England |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | present | baltic | Scottish slang |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **freeze** | gerund | Scottish slang *not said here* |  |  |  |  | cold *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **mean** | present | oot |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent out=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:language:010-plurals-mice-sheep-and-geese.lesson:15`.

**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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