---
title: An apostrophe shows missing letters or shows belonging; it is not us… — The apostrophe war · tree and pragmatics
description: An apostrophe shows missing letters or shows belonging; it is not used to make plurals. Who acts: apostrophe. A sentence of the lesson «The apostrophe war» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[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/5/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / 5

# The apostrophe war, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
An apostrophe shows missing letters or shows belonging; it is not used to make plurals.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** apostrophe · **What happens:** show, not use, make · **To what, where:** missing letters, belonging, apostrophe, plurals

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (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:5
# text = An apostrophe shows missing letters or shows belonging; it is not used to make plurals.
# 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): R7-rel-agree ×1
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	apostrophe	apostrophe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	shows	show	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	missing	missing	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	letters	letter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	shows	show	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
8	belonging	belong	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:conj
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
16	plurals	plural	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	_
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **show** | present | a apostrophe | missing letters |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent letter=Recipient |
| 2 | **show** | present | a apostrophe *not said here* | belonging |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent belong=Recipient |
| 3 | **not** **use** | present · passive |  | apostrophe |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 4 | **make** | to-infinitive |  | plurals |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset plural=Product |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:5`.

**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): 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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [The apostrophe war, 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/15-the-apostrophe-war/4/)
- next →: [The apostrophe war, 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/15-the-apostrophe-war/6/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/15-the-apostrophe-war/)