--- title: A few silent letters were never spoken at all: scholars in the 1500s… — Silent letters and the mystery of -ough · tree and pragmatics description: A few silent letters were never spoken at all: scholars in the 1500s pushed an s into island and a b into debt and doubt to make them look like Latin or French words. Who acts: scholars. A sentence of the lesson «Silent letters and the mystery of -ough» of the language course of Mova's primary schoo --- [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/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/) / [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/) / 2 # Silent letters and the mystery of -ough, sentence 2 A few silent letters were never spoken at all: scholars in the 1500s pushed an s into island and a b into debt and doubt to make them look like Latin or French words. **Who acts:** scholars · **What happens:** not speak, push, make, look · **To what, where:** few silent letters, all, s, island, scholars · **Speech:** someone speaks here 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 (scholars), 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:2 # text = A few silent letters were never spoken at all: scholars in the 1500s pushed an s into island and a b into debt and doubt to make them look like Latin or French words. # 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, R7-rel-agree ×1 1 A a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 4 det _ _ 2 few few ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 amod _ _ 3 silent silent ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 amod _ _ 4 letters letter NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 nsubj:pass _ _ 5 were be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 7 aux:pass _ _ 6 never never ADV RB PronType=Neg 7 advmod _ _ 7 spoken speak VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 0 root _ _ 8 at at ADP IN _ 9 case _ _ 9 all all DET DT PronType=Tot 7 obl _ _ 10 : : PUNCT : _ 15 punct _ _ 11 scholars scholar NOUN NNS Number=Plur 15 nsubj _ _ 12 in in ADP IN _ 14 case _ _ 13 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 14 det _ _ 14 1500s 1500 NOUN NNS Number=Ptan|NumForm=Combi|NumType=Card 11 nmod _ _ 15 pushed push VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 7 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=7:conj 16 an a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 17 det _ _ 17 s s NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 obj _ _ 18 into into ADP IN _ 19 case _ _ 19 island island NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 obl _ _ 20 and and CCONJ CC _ 22 cc _ _ 21 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 22 det _ _ 22 b b NOUN NN Number=Sing 19 conj _ _ 23 into into ADP IN _ 24 case _ _ 24 debt debt NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 nmod _ _ 25 and and CCONJ CC _ 26 cc _ _ 26 doubt doubt NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 conj _ _ 27 to to PART TO _ 28 mark _ _ 28 make make VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 15 advcl _ _ 29 them they PRON PRP Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 28 obj _ _ 30 look look VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 28 xcomp _ _ 31 like like ADP IN _ 32 case _ _ 32 Latin Latin PROPN NNP Number=Sing 30 obl _ _ 33 or or CCONJ CC _ 35 cc _ _ 34 French French ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 32 conj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=35:amod 35 words word NOUN NNS Number=Plur 32 conj _ _ 36 . . PUNCT . _ 7 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* | past · passive | | a few silent letters | | all | | | tree rules | | 2 | **push** | past | scholars in the 1500s | a s | | island and a b into debt and doubt | | | vn funnel-9.3-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent s=Theme into island=Destination | | 3 | **make** | to-infinitive | scholars in the 1500s *not said here* | scholars *= scholar* | | | | | tree rules | | 4 | **look** | infinitive | scholars *= scholar* *not said here* | | | | | like Latin or words | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | 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: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): R5-strong ×1, 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/). - ← previous: [Silent letters and the mystery of -ough, 0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/0/) - next →: [Silent letters and the mystery of -ough, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/3/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/)