---
title: Chaucer wrote "The Canterbury Tales" in Middle English in the 1300s;… — Where English came from · tree and pragmatics
description: Chaucer wrote "The Canterbury Tales" in Middle English in the 1300s; "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote" means "When April with its sweet showers". Who acts: Chaucer, shoures soote. A sentence of the lesson «Where English came from» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its depe
---

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# Where English came from, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Chaucer wrote "The Canterbury Tales" in Middle English in the 1300s; "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote" means "When April with its sweet showers".

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Chaucer, shoures soote · **What happens:** write, mean · **To what, where:** Canterbury Tales, Middle English

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Where English came from» 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 (Chaucer, shoures soote), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:language:022-where-english-came-from.lesson:12
# text = Chaucer wrote "The Canterbury Tales" in Middle English in the 1300s; "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote" means "When April with its sweet showers".
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = language
# lesson = 022-where-english-came-from.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): R8-pos-agree ×3
1	Chaucer	chaucer	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=2:nsubj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing
2	wrote	write	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	_
4	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	Canterbury	canterbury	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=6:compound|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing
6	Tales	tale	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=2:obj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NNS:Number=Plur
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	Middle	Middle	ADJ	NNP	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	English	English	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	1300s	1300	NOUN	NNS	Number=Ptan|NumForm=Combi|NumType=Card	2	obl	_	_
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
16	Whan	Whan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
18	Aprill	Aprill	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	parataxis	_	_
19	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	shoures	shoure	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	compound	_	_
22	soote	soote	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
24	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
25	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	27	punct	_	_
26	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	27	advmod	_	_
27	April	April	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
28	with	with	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
29	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
30	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	showers	shower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nmod	_	_
32	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	27	punct	_	_
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	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 | **write** | past | Chaucer | the Canterbury Tales |  | Middle English |  | in the 1300s; Whan *obl* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent tale=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **mean** | present | shoures soote |  |  |  | april |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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:022-where-english-came-from.lesson:12`.

**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): R8-pos-agree ×3. **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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