---
title: In sign languages, facial expressions are part of the grammar: raise… — Sign language · tree and pragmatics
description: In sign languages, facial expressions are part of the grammar: raised eyebrows can turn a sentence into a yes/no question. Who acts: facial expressions, raised eyebrows. A sentence of the lesson «Sign language» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/32-sign-language/9/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [Sign language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/32-sign-language/) / 9

# Sign language, sentence 9

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In sign languages, facial expressions are part of the grammar: raised eyebrows can turn a sentence into a yes/no question.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** facial expressions, raised eyebrows · **What happens:** be, raise, turn · **To what, where:** part, sign languages, sentence, yes/no question

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Sign language» 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 (facial expressions, raised eyebrows), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:language:032-sign-language.lesson:9
# text = In sign languages, facial expressions are part of the grammar: raised eyebrows can turn a sentence into a yes/no question.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = language
# lesson = 032-sign-language.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	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	languages	language	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	facial	facial	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	expressions	expression	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
7	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	grammar	grammar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
13	raised	raise	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	amod	_	_
14	eyebrows	eyebrow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
15	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	parataxis	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	sentence	sentence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	into	into	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	yes/no	yes/no	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	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 | **is a** | present | facial expressions | part |  | sign languages |  | of the grammar | tree rules |
| 2 | **raise** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **turn** | can | raised eyebrows | a sentence |  | a yes/no question |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent sentence=Theme into question=Trajectory |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:032-sign-language.lesson:9`.

**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 -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Sign language, 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/32-sign-language/8/)
- next →: [Sign language, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/32-sign-language/10/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/32-sign-language/)