---
title: Words change meaning: "meat" once meant any food, which is why old b… — Where English came from · tree and pragmatics
description: Words change meaning: "meat" once meant any food, which is why old books say "meat and drink" and a "sweetmeat" is a sweet. Who acts: Words, meat, food, sweetmeat. A sentence of the lesson «Where English came from» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# Where English came from, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Words change meaning: "meat" once meant any food, which is why old books say "meat and drink" and a "sweetmeat" is a sweet.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Words, meat, food, sweetmeat · **What happens:** change, mean, be · **To what, where:** meaning, food

<!-- .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 (Words, meat, food, sweetmeat), 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:13
# text = Words change meaning: "meat" once meant any food, which is why old books say "meat and drink" and a "sweetmeat" is a sweet.
# 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): no change
1	Words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	change	change	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	meaning	mean	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
5	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	_
6	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
8	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	9	advmod	_	_
9	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
10	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	11	det	_	_
11	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
15	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
16	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	books	book	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
18	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	_
20	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	drink	drink	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	_
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
26	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	27	punct	_	_
27	sweetmeat	sweetmeat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	nsubj	_	_
28	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	27	punct	_	_
29	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	31	cop	_	_
30	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	_
32	.	.	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 | **change** | present | Words | meaning |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mean=Patient |
| 2 | **mean** | past | meat | any food |  |  |  | once *property* | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent food=Topic |
| 3 | **is** | present | any food |  |  |  |  | say *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | present | a sweetmeat |  |  |  |  | sweet *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:022-where-english-came-from.lesson:13`.

**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/).

<!-- /div -->

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