--- title: English has no boss: unlike French, which has an official Académie F… — Is there one proper English? The big arguments · tree and pragmatics description: English has no boss: unlike French, which has an official Académie Française, nobody in London decides what is proper; dictionaries record how people use words, they follow the language rather than control it. Who acts: English, French, nobody, dictionaries. A sentence of the lesson «Is there one pr --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/20-is-there-one-proper-english/3/) [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/) / [Is there one proper English? The big a…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/20-is-there-one-proper-english/) / 3 # Is there one proper English? The big arguments, sentence 3 English has no boss: unlike French, which has an official Académie Française, nobody in London decides what is proper; dictionaries record how people use words, they follow the language rather than control it. **Who acts:** English, French, nobody, dictionaries, people · **What happens:** have, decide, be, record, use, follow · **To what, where:** boss, official Académie, words, language · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Is there one proper English? The big arguments» 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 (English, French, nobody, dictionaries), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:020-is-there-one-proper-english.lesson:3 # text = English has no boss: unlike French, which has an official Académie Française, nobody in London decides what is proper; dictionaries record how people use words, they follow the language rather than control it. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 020-is-there-one-proper-english.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): no change 1 English English PROPN NNP Number=Sing 2 nsubj _ _ 2 has have VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 3 no no DET DT PronType=Neg 4 det _ _ 4 boss boss NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 obj _ _ 5 : : PUNCT : _ 7 punct _ _ 6 unlike unlike ADP IN _ 7 case _ _ 7 French French PROPN NNP Number=Sing 2 obl _ _ 8 , , PUNCT , _ 10 punct _ _ 9 which which PRON WDT PronType=Rel 10 nsubj _ _ 10 has have VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 7 acl:relcl _ _ 11 an a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 13 det _ _ 12 official official ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 amod _ _ 13 Académie Académie PROPN NNP Number=Sing 10 obj _ _ 14 Française Française PROPN NNP Number=Sing 13 flat _ _ 15 , , PUNCT , _ 16 punct _ _ 16 nobody nobody PRON NN Number=Sing|PronType=Neg 19 nsubj _ _ 17 in in ADP IN _ 18 case _ _ 18 London London PROPN NNP Number=Sing 16 nmod _ _ 19 decides decide VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 10 conj _ _ 20 what what PRON WP PronType=Int 22 nsubj _ _ 21 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 22 cop _ _ 22 proper proper ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 19 ccomp _ _ 23 ; ; PUNCT : _ 25 punct _ _ 24 dictionaries dictionary NOUN NNS Number=Plur 25 nsubj _ _ 25 record record VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 26 how how ADV WRB PronType=Int 28 advmod _ _ 27 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 28 nsubj _ _ 28 use use VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 25 advcl _ _ 29 words word NOUN NNS Number=Plur 28 obj _ _ 30 , , PUNCT , _ 32 punct _ _ 31 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 32 nsubj _ _ 32 follow follow VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 25 conj _ _ 33 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 34 det _ _ 34 language language NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 obj _ _ 35 rather rather ADV RB ExtPos=CCONJ 37 cc _ _ 36 than than ADP IN _ 35 fixed _ _ 37 control control VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 32 conj _ _ 38 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 37 obj _ _ 39 . . PUNCT . _ 2 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 | **have** | present | English | no boss | | | | unlike French | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boss=Patient | | 2 | **have** | present | French | a official Académie | | | | | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent académie=Patient | | 3 | **decide** | present | nobody | | | | | | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **is** | present | | | | | | proper *property* | tree rules | | 5 | **record** | present | dictionaries | | | | | | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 6 | **use** | present | people | words | | | | | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Patient | | 7 | **follow** | present | People | the language | | | | | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent language=Theme | | 8 | **control** | infinitive | People *not said here* | language | | | | | vn enforce-63 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme | 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:020-is-there-one-proper-english.lesson:3`. **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): no change. **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: [Is there one proper English? The big a…, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/20-is-there-one-proper-english/2/) - next →: [Is there one proper English? The big a…, 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/20-is-there-one-proper-english/4/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/20-is-there-one-proper-english/)