--- title: Pairs of commas decide who said what: "The teacher said the pupil is… — Punctuation that changes meaning · tree and pragmatics description: Pairs of commas decide who said what: "The teacher said the pupil is a fool" and "The teacher, said the pupil, is a fool" swap who gets insulted. Who acts: Pairs, teacher, pupil. A sentence of the lesson «Punctuation that changes meaning» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its depe --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/3/) [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/) / [Punctuation that changes meaning](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/) / 3 # Punctuation that changes meaning, sentence 3 Pairs of commas decide who said what: "The teacher said the pupil is a fool" and "The teacher, said the pupil, is a fool" swap who gets insulted. **Who acts:** Pairs, teacher, pupil · **What happens:** decide, say, be, swap, insult · **To what, where:** fool · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Punctuation that changes meaning» 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 (Pairs, teacher, pupil), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:014-punctuation-that-changes-meaning.lesson:3 # text = Pairs of commas decide who said what: "The teacher said the pupil is a fool" and "The teacher, said the pupil, is a fool" swap who gets insulted. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 014-punctuation-that-changes-meaning.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 1 Pairs pair NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 nsubj _ _ 2 of of ADP IN _ 3 case _ _ 3 commas comma NOUN NNS Number=Plur 1 nmod _ _ 4 decide decide VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 5 who who PRON WP PronType=Rel 6 nsubj _ _ 6 said say VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 4 ccomp _ _ 7 what what PRON WP PronType=Int 6 obj _ _ 8 : : PUNCT : _ 12 punct _ _ 9 " " PUNCT `` _ 12 punct _ _ 10 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 11 det _ _ 11 teacher teacher NOUN NN Number=Sing 12 nsubj _ _ 12 said say VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 6 parataxis _ _ 13 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 14 det _ _ 14 pupil pupil NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 nsubj _ _ 15 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 17 cop _ _ 16 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 17 det _ _ 17 fool fool NOUN NN Number=Sing 12 ccomp _ _ 18 " " PUNCT '' _ 12 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=17:punct 19 and and CCONJ CC _ 24 cc _ _ 20 " " PUNCT `` _ 22 punct _ _ 21 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 22 det _ _ 22 teacher teacher NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 nsubj _ _ 23 , , PUNCT , _ 24 punct _ _ 24 said say VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 25 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 26 det _ _ 26 pupil pupil NOUN NN Number=Sing 30 nsubj _ _ 27 , , PUNCT , _ 26 punct _ _ 28 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 30 cop _ _ 29 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 30 det _ _ 30 fool fool NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 ccomp _ _ 31 " " PUNCT '' _ 30 punct _ _ 32 swap swap VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 33 who who PRON WP PronType=Rel 35 nsubj _ _ 34 gets get AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 35 aux:pass _ _ 35 insulted insult VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 32 acl:relcl _ _ 36 . . PUNCT . _ 4 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 | **decide** | present | Pairs of commas | | | | | | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | | | | | | | tree rules | | 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | the teacher | | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | the pupil | a fool | | | | | tree rules | | 5 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | the teacher | | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | | 6 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | the pupil | a fool | | | | | tree rules | | 7 | **swap** | present | | | | | | | vn substitute-13.6.2 «NP V PP.co-theme»: agent=Theme | | 8 | **insult** | present · passive | | | | | | | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer | 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:014-punctuation-that-changes-meaning.lesson:3`. **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. **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: [Punctuation that changes meaning, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/2/) - next →: [Punctuation that changes meaning, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/5/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/)