---
title: "Nice" comes from Latin "nescius", not knowing; in Middle English it… — Slang and how it changes with every generation · tree and pragmatics
description: "Nice" comes from Latin "nescius", not knowing; in Middle English it meant silly or foolish, later shy, then fussy, and now pleasant. Who acts: Nice, toque. A sentence of the lesson «Slang and how it changes with every generation» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency t
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/17-slang-and-how-it-changes-with-every-generation/14/)

<!-- 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/) / [Slang and how it changes with every ge…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/17-slang-and-how-it-changes-with-every-generation/) / 14

# Slang and how it changes with every generation, sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Nice" comes from Latin "nescius", not knowing; in Middle English it meant silly or foolish, later shy, then fussy, and now pleasant.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Nice, toque · **What happens:** come, not know, mean · **To what, where:** nescius, Latin

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Slang and how it changes with every generation» 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 (Nice, toque), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:language:017-slang-and-how-it-changes-with-every-generation.lesson:14
# text = "Nice" comes from Latin "nescius", not knowing; in Middle English it meant silly or foolish, later shy, then fussy, and now pleasant.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = language
# lesson = 017-slang-and-how-it-changes-with-every-generation.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, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	_
2	Nice	Nice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
4	comes	come	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	Latin	Latin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
7	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=6:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:'':_
8	nescius	nescius	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	knowing	know	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	Middle	Middle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	English	English	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:conj
19	silly	silly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	xcomp	_	_
20	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	foolish	foolish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	_
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	later	late	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	24	advmod	_	_
24	shy	shy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	_
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	27	advmod	_	_
27	fussy	fussy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	_
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
30	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	31	advmod	_	_
31	pleasant	pleasant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	_
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed form=decl, voice=narrator

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | present | Nice | nescius |  | Latin |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from latin=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **not** **know** | gerund | Nice *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **mean** | past | toque |  |  |  |  | in Middle English; silly *property* | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Pivot in english=Attribute |

<!-- .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:017-slang-and-how-it-changes-with-every-generation.lesson:14`.

**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, 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: [Slang and how it changes with every ge…, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/17-slang-and-how-it-changes-with-every-generation/13/)
- next →: [Slang and how it changes with every ge…, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/17-slang-and-how-it-changes-with-every-generation/15/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/17-slang-and-how-it-changes-with-every-generation/)