--- title: A good complaint letter states the problem, gives the facts and asks… — Formal and informal: a mate versus the head teac… · tree and pragmatics description: A good complaint letter states the problem, gives the facts and asks politely; people are more likely to help when you are polite. Who acts: good complaint letter, people, you. A sentence of the lesson «Formal and informal: a mate versus the head teacher» of the language course of Mova's primary sch --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/16-formal-and-informal-a-mate-versus-the-head-teacher/12/) [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/) / [Formal and informal: a mate versus the…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/16-formal-and-informal-a-mate-versus-the-head-teacher/) / 12 # Formal and informal: a mate versus the head teacher, sentence 12 A good complaint letter states the problem, gives the facts and asks politely; people are more likely to help when you are polite. **Who acts:** good complaint letter, people, you · **What happens:** state, give, ask, be, help · **To what, where:** problem, facts This is a sentence of the lesson «Formal and informal: a mate versus the head teacher» 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 (good complaint letter, people, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:016-formal-and-informal-a-mate-versus-the-head-teacher.lesson:12 # text = A good complaint letter states the problem, gives the facts and asks politely; people are more likely to help when you are polite. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 016-formal-and-informal-a-mate-versus-the-head-teacher.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): R3-conj-first ×2 1 A a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 4 det _ _ 2 good good ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 amod _ _ 3 complaint complaint NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 compound _ _ 4 letter letter NOUN NN Number=Sing 5 nsubj _ _ 5 states state VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 6 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 7 det _ _ 7 problem problem NOUN NN Number=Sing 5 obj _ _ 8 , , PUNCT , _ 9 punct _ _ 9 gives give VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 conj _ _ 10 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 11 det _ _ 11 facts fact NOUN NNS Number=Plur 9 obj _ _ 12 and and CCONJ CC _ 13 cc _ _ 13 asks ask VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 conj _ Agree=R3-conj-first|Haiku=9:conj 14 politely politely ADV RB _ 13 advmod _ _ 15 ; ; PUNCT : _ 19 punct _ _ 16 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 19 nsubj _ _ 17 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 19 cop _ _ 18 more more ADV RBR Degree=Cmp 19 advmod _ _ 19 likely likely ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 5 conj _ Agree=R3-conj-first|Haiku=9:conj 20 to to PART TO _ 21 mark _ _ 21 help help VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 19 xcomp _ _ 22 when when SCONJ WRB _ 25 mark _ _ 23 you you PRON PRP Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs 25 nsubj _ _ 24 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 25 cop _ _ 25 polite polite ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 21 advcl _ _ 26 . . PUNCT . _ 5 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 | **state** *speech: other* | present | a good complaint letter | the problem | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent problem=Topic | | 2 | **give** | present | a good complaint letter *not said here* | the facts | | | | | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fact=Theme | | 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | present | a good complaint letter *not said here* | | | | | politely *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **is** | present | people | | | | | likely *property* | tree rules | | 5 | **help** | to-infinitive | people *not said here* | | | | | | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent | | 6 | **is** | present | you | | | | | polite *property* | tree rules | 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:016-formal-and-informal-a-mate-versus-the-head-teacher.lesson:12`. **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): R3-conj-first ×2. **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: [Formal and informal: a mate versus the…, 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/16-formal-and-informal-a-mate-versus-the-head-teacher/11/) - next →: [Formal and informal: a mate versus the…, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/16-formal-and-informal-a-mate-versus-the-head-teacher/13/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/16-formal-and-informal-a-mate-versus-the-head-teacher/)