--- title: The classic trap: "The old man the boat." It looks broken until you… — Grammar puzzles, part one · tree and pragmatics description: The classic trap: "The old man the boat." It looks broken until you see that "the old" means old people and "man" is the verb (to crew a boat): old people crew the boat. Who acts: old, It, you, man. A sentence of the lesson «Grammar puzzles, part one» of the language course of Mova's primary school --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/11-grammar-puzzles-part-one/1/) [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/) / [Grammar puzzles, part one](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/11-grammar-puzzles-part-one/) / 1 # Grammar puzzles, part one, sentence 1 The classic trap: "The old man the boat." It looks broken until you see that "the old" means old people and "man" is the verb (to crew a boat): old people crew the boat. **Who acts:** old, It, you, man, old people · **What happens:** man, look, break, see, mean, be · **To what, where:** boat, old people, verb · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Grammar puzzles, part one» 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 (old, It, you, man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:011-grammar-puzzles-part-one.lesson:1 # text = The classic trap: "The old man the boat." It looks broken until you see that "the old" means old people and "man" is the verb (to crew a boat): old people crew the boat. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 011-grammar-puzzles-part-one.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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 3 det _ _ 2 classic classic ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 amod _ _ 3 trap trap NOUN NN Number=Sing 14 dep _ _ 4 : : PUNCT : _ 10 punct _ _ 5 " " PUNCT `` _ 8 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=10:punct 6 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 7 det _ _ 7 old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 nsubj _ _ 8 man man NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 appos _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:parataxis|HaikuPos=VERB:VBP:Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 9 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 10 det _ _ 10 boat boat NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 obj _ _ 11 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _ 12 " " PUNCT '' _ 14 punct _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=14:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:":_ 13 It it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 14 nsubj _ _ 14 looks look VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 15 broken break VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 14 xcomp _ _ 16 until until SCONJ IN _ 18 mark _ _ 17 you you PRON PRP Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs 18 nsubj _ _ 18 see see VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 14 advcl _ _ 19 that that SCONJ IN _ 24 mark _ _ 20 " " PUNCT `` _ 22 punct _ _ 21 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 22 det _ _ 22 old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 24 nsubj _ _ 23 " " PUNCT '' _ 22 punct _ _ 24 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 18 ccomp _ _ 25 old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 26 amod _ _ 26 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 24 obj _ _ 27 and and CCONJ CC _ 33 cc _ _ 28 " " PUNCT `` _ 29 punct _ _ 29 man man NOUN NN Number=Sing 33 nsubj _ _ 30 " " PUNCT '' _ 29 punct _ _ 31 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 33 cop _ _ 32 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 33 det _ _ 33 verb verb NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 conj _ _ 34 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 36 punct _ _ 35 to to PART TO _ 36 mark _ _ 36 crew crew VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 33 parataxis _ _ 37 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 38 det _ _ 38 boat boat NOUN NN Number=Sing 36 obj _ _ 39 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 36 punct _ _ 40 : : PUNCT : _ 43 punct _ _ 41 old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 42 amod _ _ 42 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 43 nsubj _ _ 43 crew crew VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 14 conj _ _ 44 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 45 det _ _ 45 boat boat NOUN NN Number=Sing 43 obj _ _ 46 . . PUNCT . _ 14 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed voice=narrator | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **man** *in a quote* | | the old | the boat | | | | | tree rules | | 2 | **look** | present | It | | | | | | tree rules | | 3 | **break** | participle | | | | | | | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient | | 4 | **see** | present | you | | | | | | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus | | 5 | **mean** | present | the old | old people | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent people=Topic | | 6 | **is a** | present | man | the verb | | | | | tree rules | | 7 | **crew** | to-infinitive | | a boat | | | | | vn captain-29.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boat=Beneficiary | | 8 | **crew** | present | old people | the boat | | | | | vn captain-29.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boat=Beneficiary | 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:011-grammar-puzzles-part-one.lesson:1`. **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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-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/). - ← previous: [Grammar puzzles, part one, 0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/11-grammar-puzzles-part-one/0/) - next →: [Grammar puzzles, part one, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/11-grammar-puzzles-part-one/2/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/11-grammar-puzzles-part-one/)