---
title: Britain, Ireland and Australia say "maths"; the USA and Canada say "… — British and American words · tree and pragmatics
description: Britain, Ireland and Australia say "maths"; the USA and Canada say "math"; both are short for "mathematics". Who acts: Britain, USA, both. A sentence of the lesson «British and American words» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause
---

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# British and American words, sentence 15

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Britain, Ireland and Australia say "maths"; the USA and Canada say "math"; both are short for "mathematics".

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**Who acts:** Britain, USA, both · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** maths, math · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «British and American words» 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 (Britain, USA, both), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:language:021-british-and-american-words.lesson:15
# text = Britain, Ireland and Australia say "maths"; the USA and Canada say "math"; both are short for "mathematics".
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = language
# lesson = 021-british-and-american-words.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, R8-pos-agree ×2
1	Britain	Britain	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
3	Ireland	Ireland	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	conj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	Australia	Australia	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	conj	_	_
6	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=0:root|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:VerbForm=Inf
7	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	_
8	maths	math	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	USA	USA	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	Canada	Canada	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
15	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	parataxis	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	_
17	math	math	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
19	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
20	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	22	nsubj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=22:nsubj|HaikuPos=PRON:DT:PronType=Tot
21	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
22	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	ccomp	_	_
23	for	for	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	_
25	mathematics	mathematics	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
26	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	25	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=22:punct
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	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 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Britain and Ireland and Australia | maths |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent math=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | infinitive | the USA and Canada | math |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent math=Topic |
| 3 | **is** | present | both |  |  |  |  | for mathematics; short *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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:021-british-and-american-words.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, R8-pos-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/).

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