---
title: The greengrocer's apostrophe is the name for a wrong apostrophe in a… — The apostrophe war · tree and pragmatics
description: The greengrocer's apostrophe is the name for a wrong apostrophe in a plural, like "Banana's 30p"; a greengrocer is a shop selling fruit and vegetables. Who acts: apostrophe, greengrocer, plural shop. A sentence of the lesson «The apostrophe war» of the language course of Mova's primary school with i
---

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# The apostrophe war, sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The greengrocer's apostrophe is the name for a wrong apostrophe in a plural, like "Banana's 30p"; a greengrocer is a shop selling fruit and vegetables.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** apostrophe, greengrocer, plural shop · **What happens:** be, sell · **To what, where:** name, plural shop, fruit

<!-- .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, greengrocer, plural shop), 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:6
# text = The greengrocer's apostrophe is the name for a wrong apostrophe in a plural, like "Banana's 30p"; a greengrocer is a shop selling fruit and vegetables.
# 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 ×1
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	greengrocer	greengrocer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	_
3	's	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	apostrophe	apostrophe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	wrong	wrong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	apostrophe	apostrophe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=28:det
14	plural	plural	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	like	like	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	_
18	Banana	Banana	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	nmod:poss	_	_
19	's	's	PART	POS	_	18	case	_	_
20	30	30	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	21	nummod	_	_
21	p	p	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	21	punct	_	_
23	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	greengrocer	greengrocer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj	_	_
26	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	shop	shop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	parataxis	_	_
29	selling	sell	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	28	acl	_	_
30	fruit	fruit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obj	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
32	vegetables	vegetable	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	conj	_	_
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | the greengrocer's apostrophe | the name |  |  |  | for a wrong apostrophe | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | present | a greengrocer |  |  | a plural shop |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **sell** | gerund | a plural shop *not said here* | fruit and vegetables |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fruit=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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**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:6`.

**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. **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/).

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