--- title: Mei says "mā, má, mǎ, mà" and her friend hears "ma, ma, ma, ma"; but… — Mandarin compared with English · tree and pragmatics description: Mei says "mā, má, mǎ, mà" and her friend hears "ma, ma, ma, ma"; but to Mei they are four words, mother, hemp, horse and scold, because in Mandarin the rise and fall of your voice (the tone) is part of the word. Who acts: Mei, friend, ma, rise. A sentence of the lesson «Mandarin compared with Englis --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/1/) [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/) / [Mandarin compared with English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/) / 1 # Mandarin compared with English, sentence 1 Mei says "mā, má, mǎ, mà" and her friend hears "ma, ma, ma, ma"; but to Mei they are four words, mother, hemp, horse and scold, because in Mandarin the rise and fall of your voice (the tone) is part of the word. **Who acts:** Mei, friend, ma, rise, voice · **What happens:** say, hears, be, rise · **To what, where:** mā, ma, four words, part, Mandarin · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Mandarin compared with English» 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 (Mei, friend, ma, rise), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:034-mandarin-compared-with-english.lesson:1 # text = Mei says "mā, má, mǎ, mà" and her friend hears "ma, ma, ma, ma"; but to Mei they are four words, mother, hemp, horse and scold, because in Mandarin the rise and fall of your voice (the tone) is part of the word. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 034-mandarin-compared-with-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): R6-punct-agree ×2, R8-pos-agree ×3 1 Mei mei PROPN NNP Number=Sing 2 nsubj _ _ 2 says say VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 3 " " PUNCT `` _ 4 punct _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=4:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:'':_ 4 mā mā NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 obj _ _ 5 , , PUNCT , _ 6 punct _ _ 6 má má NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 conj _ _ 7 , , PUNCT , _ 8 punct _ _ 8 mǎ mǎ NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 conj _ _ 9 , , PUNCT , _ 10 punct _ _ 10 mà mà NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 appos _ _ 11 " " PUNCT '' _ 10 punct _ _ 12 and and CCONJ CC _ 15 cc _ _ 13 her her PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 14 nmod:poss _ _ 14 friend friend NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 nsubj _ _ 15 hears hears VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 16 " " PUNCT `` _ 17 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=15:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:'':_ 17 ma ma NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 obj _ _ 18 , , PUNCT , _ 19 punct _ _ 19 ma ma NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 conj _ _ 20 , , PUNCT , _ 21 punct _ _ 21 ma ma NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 conj _ _ 22 , , PUNCT , _ 23 punct _ _ 23 ma ma NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 appos _ _ 24 " " PUNCT '' _ 17 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=23:punct 25 ; ; PUNCT : _ 28 punct _ _ 26 but but CCONJ CC _ 32 cc _ _ 27 to to ADP IN _ 28 case _ _ 28 Mei mei NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 obl _ _ 29 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 32 nsubj _ _ 30 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 32 cop _ _ 31 four four NUM CD NumForm=Word|NumType=Card 32 nummod _ _ 32 words word NOUN NNS Number=Plur 2 conj _ _ 33 , , PUNCT , _ 34 punct _ _ 34 mother mother NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 conj _ _ 35 , , PUNCT , _ 36 punct _ _ 36 hemp hemp NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 conj _ _ 37 , , PUNCT , _ 38 punct _ _ 38 horse horse NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 conj _ _ 39 and and CCONJ CC _ 40 cc _ _ 40 scold scold NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 conj _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=32:conj|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:VerbForm=Inf 41 , , PUNCT , _ 57 punct _ _ 42 because because SCONJ IN _ 57 mark _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=57:mark|HaikuPos=ADP:IN:ExtPos=ADP 43 in in ADP IN _ 44 case _ _ 44 Mandarin Mandarin PROPN NNP Number=Sing 57 obl _ _ 45 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 46 det _ _ 46 rise rise NOUN NN Number=Sing 57 nsubj _ _ 47 and and CCONJ CC _ 48 cc _ _ 48 fall fall NOUN NN Number=Sing 46 conj _ _ 49 of of ADP IN _ 51 case _ _ 50 your your PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 51 nmod:poss _ _ 51 voice voice NOUN NN Number=Sing 46 nmod _ _ 52 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 54 punct _ _ 53 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 54 det _ _ 54 tone tone NOUN NN Number=Sing 51 appos _ _ 55 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 54 punct _ _ 56 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 57 cop _ _ 57 part part NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 advcl _ _ 58 of of ADP IN _ 60 case _ _ 59 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 60 det _ _ 60 word word NOUN NN Number=Sing 57 nmod _ _ 61 . . PUNCT . _ 2 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Mei | mā and má and mǎ | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent mā=Topic | | 2 | **hears** | present | Mei's friend | ma and ma and ma | | | | | tree rules | | 3 | **is a** | present | ma | four words and mother and hemp and horse and scold | | | | to Mei | tree rules | | 4 | **is a** | present | the rise of your voice and fall | part | | Mandarin | | of the word | tree rules | | 5 | **rise** | | your voice | | | | | | nom rise «event intransitive»: of=agent | 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:034-mandarin-compared-with-english.lesson:1`. **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 ×2, 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/). - ← previous: [Mandarin compared with English, 0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/0/) - next →: [Mandarin compared with English, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/2/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/)