--- title: In 2009 Birmingham City Council dropped apostrophes from its street… — The apostrophe war · tree and pragmatics description: In 2009 Birmingham City Council dropped apostrophes from its street signs, and many people protested; in 2013 Mid Devon council tried a similar ban and changed its mind after complaints. Who acts: Birmingham City Council, Devon council, apostrophe. A sentence of the lesson «The apostrophe war» of th --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/15-the-apostrophe-war/11/) [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/) / [The apostrophe war](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/15-the-apostrophe-war/) / 11 # The apostrophe war, sentence 11 In 2009 Birmingham City Council dropped apostrophes from its street signs, and many people protested; in 2013 Mid Devon council tried a similar ban and changed its mind after complaints. **Who acts:** Birmingham City Council, Devon council, apostrophe · **What happens:** drop, protest, try, change, sign, mind · **To what, where:** apostrophes, 2009, similar ban, 2013, mind This is a sentence of the lesson «The apostrophe war» 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 (Birmingham City Council, Devon council, apostrophe), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:015-the-apostrophe-war.lesson:11 # text = In 2009 Birmingham City Council dropped apostrophes from its street signs, and many people protested; in 2013 Mid Devon council tried a similar ban and changed its mind after complaints. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 015-the-apostrophe-war.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 ×3, R7-rel-agree ×1 1 In in ADP IN _ 2 case _ _ 2 2009 2009 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 6 obl _ _ 3 Birmingham Birmingham PROPN NNP Number=Sing 5 compound _ _ 4 City City PROPN NNP Number=Sing 5 compound _ _ 5 Council Council PROPN NNP Number=Sing 6 nsubj _ _ 6 dropped drop VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 7 apostrophes apostrophe NOUN NNS Number=Plur 6 obj _ _ 8 from from ADP IN _ 11 case _ _ 9 its its PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 11 nmod:poss _ _ 10 street street NOUN NN Number=Sing 11 compound _ _ 11 signs sign NOUN NNS Number=Plur 6 obl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=7:nmod 12 , , PUNCT , _ 15 punct _ _ 13 and and CCONJ CC _ 15 cc _ _ 14 many many ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 15 amod _ _ 15 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 conj _ _ 16 protested protest VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=15:acl|HaikuPos=VERB:VBN:Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 17 ; ; PUNCT : _ 23 punct _ _ 18 in in ADP IN _ 19 case _ _ 19 2013 2013 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 23 obl _ _ 20 Mid Mid PROPN NNP Number=Sing 21 compound _ _ 21 Devon Devon PROPN NNP Number=Sing 22 compound _ _ 22 council Council PROPN NNP Number=Sing 23 nsubj _ _ 23 tried try VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 6 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=6:conj 24 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 26 det _ _ 25 similar similar ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 26 amod _ _ 26 ban ban NOUN NN Number=Sing 23 obj _ _ 27 and and CCONJ CC _ 28 cc _ _ 28 changed change VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 23 conj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=6:conj 29 its its PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 30 nmod:poss _ _ 30 mind mind NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 obj _ _ 31 after after ADP IN _ 32 case _ _ 32 complaints complaint NOUN NNS Number=Plur 28 obl _ _ 33 . . PUNCT . _ 6 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **drop** | past | Birmingham City Council | apostrophes and many people | | 2009 | | from apostrophe's street signs | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location PP.destination»: agent=Agent apostrophe=Theme in 2009=Destination from sign=Initial\_Location | | 2 | **protest** *speech: disagree* | past | Birmingham City Council *not said here* | | | | | | vn rebel-71.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **try** | past | Devon council | a similar ban | | 2013 | | | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ban=Eventuality | | 4 | **change** | past | Devon council *not said here* | apostrophe's mind | | | after complaints | | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mind=Patient | | 5 | **sign** | | apostrophe | | | | | | nom sign «communication transitive»: poss=agent | | 6 | **mind** | | apostrophe | | | | | | nom mind «cognition transitive»: poss=agent | 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:015-the-apostrophe-war.lesson:11`. **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 ×3, 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: [The apostrophe war, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/15-the-apostrophe-war/10/) - next →: [The apostrophe war, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/15-the-apostrophe-war/12/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/15-the-apostrophe-war/)