--- title: In Old English, knee was cnēow and was said with a k; people stopped… — Silent letters and the mystery of -ough · tree and pragmatics description: In Old English, knee was cnēow and was said with a k; people stopped saying the k at the start of words around the 1600s; German Knie still has a spoken k. Who acts: knee, people, German Knie. A sentence of the lesson «Silent letters and the mystery of -ough» of the language course of Mova's primary --- [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/7/) [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/) / 7 # Silent letters and the mystery of -ough, sentence 7 In Old English, knee was cnēow and was said with a k; people stopped saying the k at the start of words around the 1600s; German Knie still has a spoken k. **Who acts:** knee, people, German Knie · **What happens:** be, say, stop, have, speak, start · **To what, where:** Old English, k, start, spoken k., words · **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 (knee, people, German Knie), 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:7 # text = In Old English, knee was cnēow and was said with a k; people stopped saying the k at the start of words around the 1600s; German Knie still has a spoken k. # 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): R1-cc-next ×1, R5-strong ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 In in ADP IN _ 3 case _ _ 2 Old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 amod _ _ 3 English English PROPN NNP Number=Sing 7 obl _ _ 4 , , PUNCT , _ 3 punct _ _ 5 knee knee NOUN NN Number=Sing 7 nsubj _ _ 6 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 7 cop _ _ 7 cnēow cnēow ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 0 root _ _ 8 and and CCONJ CC _ 10 cc _ Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=7:cc 9 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 10 aux:pass _ _ 10 said say VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 7 conj _ _ 11 with with ADP IN _ 13 case _ _ 12 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 13 det _ _ 13 k k NOUN NN Number=Sing 10 obl _ _ 14 ; ; PUNCT : _ 16 punct _ _ 15 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 16 nsubj _ _ 16 stopped stop VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 7 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=7:conj 17 saying say VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 16 xcomp _ _ 18 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 19 det _ _ 19 k k NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 obj _ _ 20 at at ADP IN _ 22 case _ _ 21 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 22 det _ _ 22 start start NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 obl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=19:nmod 23 of of ADP IN _ 24 case _ _ 24 words word NOUN NNS Number=Plur 22 nmod _ _ 25 around around ADP IN _ 27 case _ _ 26 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 27 det _ _ 27 1600s 1600 NOUN NNS Number=Ptan|NumForm=Combi|NumType=Card 24 nmod _ _ 28 ; ; PUNCT : _ 32 punct _ _ 29 German German ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 30 amod _ _ 30 Knie Knie PROPN NNP Number=Sing 32 nsubj _ _ 31 still still ADV RB _ 32 advmod _ _ 32 has have VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 7 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=7:conj 33 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 35 det _ _ 34 spoken speak VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 35 amod _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=35:amod|HaikuPos=ADJ:JJ:Degree=Pos 35 k. k NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 obj _ _ ``` ## 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** | past | knee | | | Old English | | cnēow *property* | tree rules | | 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · passive | knee *not said here* | | | | | with a k | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: with k=Manner | | 3 | **stop** | past | people | | | | | | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality | | 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | people *not said here* | the k | | the start of words around the 1600s | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent k=Topic | | 5 | **have** | present | German Knie | a spoken k. | | | still | | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent k=Patient | | 6 | **speak** *speech: other* | participle | | | | | | | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 7 | **start** | | | words around the 1600s | | | | | nom start «event transitive»: of=patient | 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: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): R1-cc-next ×1, R5-strong ×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, 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/6/) - next →: [Silent letters and the mystery of -ough, 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/8/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/)