--- title: In Singapore English (Singlish) "Can or not?" means is that possible… — Accents and dialects around the world · tree and pragmatics description: In Singapore English (Singlish) "Can or not?" means is that possible?, "Can lah!" means yes, sure, and "lah" adds feeling; Singlish mixes English with Malay, Chinese languages and Tamil. Who acts: that, lah, Singlish. A sentence of the lesson «Accents and dialects around the world» of the language c --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/19-accents-and-dialects-around-the-world/10/) [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/) / [Accents and dialects around the world](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/19-accents-and-dialects-around-the-world/) / 10 # Accents and dialects around the world, sentence 10 In Singapore English (Singlish) "Can or not?" means is that possible?, "Can lah!" means yes, sure, and "lah" adds feeling; Singlish mixes English with Malay, Chinese languages and Tamil. **Who acts:** that, lah, Singlish · **What happens:** mean, be, add, mix · **To what, where:** feeling, English · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Accents and dialects around the world» 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 (that, lah, Singlish), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:019-accents-and-dialects-around-the-world.lesson:10 # text = In Singapore English (Singlish) "Can or not?" means is that possible?, "Can lah!" means yes, sure, and "lah" adds feeling; Singlish mixes English with Malay, Chinese languages and Tamil. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 019-accents-and-dialects-around-the-world.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 ×2, R6-punct-agree ×4, R7-rel-agree ×2 1 In in ADP IN _ 3 case _ _ 2 Singapore Singapore PROPN NNP Number=Sing 3 compound _ _ 3 English English PROPN NNP Number=Sing 13 obl _ _ 4 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 5 punct _ _ 5 Singlish Singlish PROPN NNP Number=Sing 3 appos _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:conj 6 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 5 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=3:punct 7 " " PUNCT `` _ 8 punct _ _ 8 Can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 3 acl:relcl _ _ 9 or or CCONJ CC _ 10 cc _ _ 10 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 8 conj _ _ 11 ? ? PUNCT . _ 8 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=3:punct 12 " " PUNCT '' _ 8 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=3:punct 13 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 14 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 16 cop _ _ 15 that that PRON DT Number=Sing|PronType=Dem 16 nsubj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=16:mark|HaikuPos=SCONJ:IN:_ 16 possible possible ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 ccomp _ _ 17 ? ? PUNCT . _ 13 punct _ _ 18 , , PUNCT , _ 24 punct _ _ 19 " " PUNCT `` _ 20 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=21:punct 20 Can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 24 aux _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=21:aux 21 lah lah NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 nsubj _ _ 22 ! ! PUNCT . _ 21 punct _ _ 23 " " PUNCT '' _ 21 punct _ _ 24 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 13 parataxis _ _ 25 yes yes INTJ UH Polarity=Pos 27 discourse _ _ 26 , , PUNCT , _ 25 punct _ _ 27 sure sure INTJ UH _ 24 discourse _ _ 28 , , PUNCT , _ 34 punct _ _ 29 and and CCONJ CC _ 33 cc _ _ 30 " " PUNCT `` _ 31 punct _ _ 31 lah lah NOUN NN Number=Sing 33 nsubj _ _ 32 " " PUNCT '' _ 31 punct _ _ 33 adds add VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 24 conj _ _ 34 feeling feeling NOUN NN Number=Sing 33 obj _ _ 35 ; ; PUNCT , _ 37 punct _ _ 36 Singlish Singlish PROPN NNP Number=Sing 37 nsubj _ _ 37 mixes mix VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 13 conj _ _ 38 English English PROPN NNP Number=Sing 37 obj _ _ 39 with with ADP IN _ 40 case _ _ 40 Malay malay NOUN NN Number=Sing 37 obl _ _ 41 , , PUNCT , _ 43 punct _ _ 42 Chinese Chinese ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 43 amod _ _ 43 languages language NOUN NNS Number=Plur 40 conj _ _ 44 and and CCONJ CC _ 45 cc _ _ 45 Tamil Tamil PROPN NNP Number=Sing 43 conj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=40:conj 46 . . PUNCT . _ 13 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **mean** | present | | | | | | in Singapore English | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Pivot in english=Attribute | | 2 | **is** | present | that | | | | | possible *property* | tree rules | | 3 | **mean** | can | lah | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **add** *speech: assert* | present | lah | feeling | | | | | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent feeling=Patient | | 5 | **mix** | present | Singlish | English | | | | with Malay and Chinese languages and Tamil | vn mix-22.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent english=Patient with malay=Co-Patient | 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:019-accents-and-dialects-around-the-world.lesson:10`. **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 ×2, R6-punct-agree ×4, R7-rel-agree ×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: [Accents and dialects around the world, 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/19-accents-and-dialects-around-the-world/9/) - next →: [Accents and dialects around the world, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/19-accents-and-dialects-around-the-world/12/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/19-accents-and-dialects-around-the-world/)