--- title: "Ghoti" is a famous joke spelling of fish (gh as in tough, o as in w… — Silent letters and the mystery of -ough · tree and pragmatics description: "Ghoti" is a famous joke spelling of fish (gh as in tough, o as in women, ti as in nation); real English never uses those letters that way at the start or end of a word, so it is a joke, not a rule. Who acts: Ghoti, real English, spelling. A sentence of the lesson «Silent letters and the mystery of --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/17/) [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/) / [Silent letters and the mystery of -ough](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/) / 17 # Silent letters and the mystery of -ough, sentence 17 "Ghoti" is a famous joke spelling of fish (gh as in tough, o as in women, ti as in nation); real English never uses those letters that way at the start or end of a word, so it is a joke, not a rule. **Who acts:** Ghoti, real English, spelling · **What happens:** be, not use · **To what, where:** famous joke spelling, letters, start, joke This is a sentence of the lesson «Silent letters and the mystery of -ough» 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 (Ghoti, real English, spelling), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:013-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough.lesson:17 # text = "Ghoti" is a famous joke spelling of fish (gh as in tough, o as in women, ti as in nation); real English never uses those letters that way at the start or end of a word, so it is a joke, not a rule. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 013-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough.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): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 " " PUNCT `` _ 2 punct _ _ 2 Ghoti Ghoti PROPN NNP Number=Sing 8 nsubj _ _ 3 " " PUNCT '' _ 2 punct _ _ 4 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 8 cop _ _ 5 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 8 det _ _ 6 famous famous ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 amod _ _ 7 joke joke NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 compound _ _ 8 spelling spelling NOUN NN Number=Sing 0 root _ _ 9 of of ADP IN _ 10 case _ _ 10 fish fish NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 nmod _ _ 11 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 12 punct _ _ 12 gh gh NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 appos _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=8:appos|HaikuPos=ADJ:JJ:Degree=Pos 13 as as ADP IN ExtPos=ADP 15 case _ _ 14 in in ADP IN _ 13 fixed _ _ 15 tough tough ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 12 nmod _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=12:obl 16 , , PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=20:punct 17 o o ADV RB _ 20 advmod _ _ 18 as as ADP IN _ 20 case _ _ 19 in in ADP IN _ 20 case _ _ 20 women woman NOUN NNS Number=Plur 12 conj _ _ 21 , , PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 22 ti ti X XX _ 12 conj _ _ 23 as as ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 24 in in ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 25 nation nation NOUN NN Number=Sing 12 obl _ _ 26 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 12 punct _ _ 27 ; ; PUNCT , _ 31 punct _ _ 28 real real ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 29 amod _ _ 29 English English PROPN NNP Number=Sing 31 nsubj _ _ 30 never never ADV RB PronType=Neg 31 advmod _ _ 31 uses use VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 8 conj _ _ 32 those that DET DT Number=Plur|PronType=Dem 33 det _ _ 33 letters letter NOUN NNS Number=Plur 31 obj _ _ 34 that that DET DT Number=Sing|PronType=Dem 35 det _ _ 35 way way NOUN NN Number=Sing 31 obl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=31:obj 36 at at ADP IN _ 38 case _ _ 37 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 38 det _ _ 38 start start NOUN NN Number=Sing 31 obl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=35:nmod 39 or or CCONJ CC _ 40 cc _ _ 40 end end NOUN NN Number=Sing 38 conj _ _ 41 of of ADP IN _ 43 case _ _ 42 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 43 det _ _ 43 word word NOUN NN Number=Sing 40 nmod _ _ 44 , , PUNCT , _ 49 punct _ _ 45 so so ADV RB _ 49 advmod _ _ 46 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 49 nsubj _ _ 47 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 49 cop _ _ 48 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 49 det _ _ 49 joke joke NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 conj _ _ 50 , , PUNCT , _ 53 punct _ _ 51 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 53 advmod _ _ 52 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 53 det _ _ 53 rule rule NOUN NN Number=Sing 49 conj _ _ 54 . . PUNCT . _ 8 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **is a** | present | Ghoti | a famous joke spelling and a joke and a rule | | | | of fish | tree rules | | 2 | **not** **use** | present | real English | that letters | | the start or end of a word | | that way *obl* | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent letter=Patient | | 3 | **is a** | present | spelling | a joke and a rule | | | | | tree rules | 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:013-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough.lesson:17`. **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): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2, 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: [Silent letters and the mystery of -ough, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/16/) - next →: [Punctuation that changes meaning, 0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/0/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/)