---
title: In careful writing people use "fewer" with countable nouns and "less… — Nouns: the names of things, people, places and i… · tree and pragmatics
description: In careful writing people use "fewer" with countable nouns and "less" with uncountable ones, though in casual speech many say "less" for both. Who acts: people, many. A sentence of the lesson «Nouns: the names of things, people, places and ideas» of the language course of Mova's primary school with 
---

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# Nouns: the names of things, people, places and ideas, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In careful writing people use "fewer" with countable nouns and "less" with uncountable ones, though in casual speech many say "less" for both.

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**Who acts:** people, many · **What happens:** use, say · **To what, where:** fewer, careful writing, casual speech · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Nouns: the names of things, people, places and ideas» 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 (people, many), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:language:002-nouns-names-of-things-people-places-ideas.lesson:15
# text = In careful writing people use "fewer" with countable nouns and "less" with uncountable ones, though in casual speech many say "less" for both.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = language
# lesson = 002-nouns-names-of-things-people-places-ideas.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
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	careful	careful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	writing	writing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	use	use	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	_
7	fewer	few	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	5	obj	_	_
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=5:punct
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	countable	countable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	nouns	noun	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	_
14	less	less	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	18	advmod	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	uncountable	uncountable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	ones	one	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	conj	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	casual	casual	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	speech	speech	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
24	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	nsubj	_	_
25	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
26	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	27	punct	_	_
27	less	less	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	25	ccomp	_	_
28	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	27	punct	_	_
29	for	for	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	27	obl	_	_
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	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 | **use** | present | people | fewer |  | careful writing |  | with countable nouns and uncountable ones | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent few=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | many |  |  | casual speech |  |  | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent in speech=Manner |

<!-- .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:002-nouns-names-of-things-people-places-ideas.lesson:15`.

**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. **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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