--- title: Adding "吗" (ma) to the end of a sentence turns it into a yes/no ques… — Mandarin compared with English · tree and pragmatics description: Adding "吗" (ma) to the end of a sentence turns it into a yes/no question: "你好吗?" (nǐ hǎo ma?) means "How are you?", literally "you good?". Who acts: nǐ ma, you. A sentence of the lesson «Mandarin compared with English» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the --- [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/13/) [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/) / 13 # Mandarin compared with English, sentence 13 Adding "吗" (ma) to the end of a sentence turns it into a yes/no question: "你好吗?" (nǐ hǎo ma?) means "How are you?", literally "you good?". **Who acts:** nǐ ma, you · **What happens:** add, turn, mean, be · **To what, where:** 吗, yes/no question · **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 (nǐ ma, you), 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:13 # text = Adding "吗" (ma) to the end of a sentence turns it into a yes/no question: "你好吗?" (nǐ hǎo ma?) means "How are you?", literally "you good?". # 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): R5-strong ×3, R6-punct-agree ×5 1 Adding add VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 0 root _ _ 2 " " PUNCT `` _ 3 punct _ _ 3 吗 吗 NOUN NN Number=Sing 1 obj _ _ 4 " " PUNCT '' _ 3 punct _ _ 5 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 6 punct _ _ 6 ma ma NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 appos _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=1:parataxis 7 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 6 punct _ _ 8 to to ADP IN _ 10 case _ _ 9 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 10 det _ _ 10 end end NOUN NN Number=Sing 1 obl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=14:obl 11 of of ADP IN _ 13 case _ _ 12 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 13 det _ _ 13 sentence sentence NOUN NN Number=Sing 10 nmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=14:obl 14 turns turn VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 1 conj _ _ 15 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 14 obj _ _ 16 into into ADP IN _ 19 case _ _ 17 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 19 det _ _ 18 yes/no yes/no NOUN NN Number=Sing 19 compound _ _ 19 question question NOUN NN Number=Sing 14 obl _ _ 20 : : PUNCT : _ 22 punct _ _ 21 " " PUNCT `` _ 22 punct _ _ 22 你好吗 你好吗 X FW Foreign=Yes 14 conj _ _ 23 ? ? PUNCT . _ 22 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=14:punct 24 " " PUNCT '' _ 22 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=14:punct 25 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 28 punct _ _ 26 nǐ nǐ X FW Foreign=Yes 28 amod _ _ 27 hǎo hǎo X FW Foreign=Yes 26 flat _ _ 28 ma ma NOUN NN Number=Sing 31 nsubj _ _ 29 ? ? PUNCT . _ 28 punct _ _ 30 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 28 punct _ _ 31 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 14 parataxis _ _ 32 " " PUNCT `` _ 33 punct _ _ 33 How how ADV WRB PronType=Int 31 ccomp _ _ 34 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 33 cop _ _ 35 you you PRON PRP Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs 33 nsubj _ _ 36 ? ? PUNCT . _ 33 punct _ _ 37 " " PUNCT '' _ 33 punct _ _ 38 , , PUNCT , _ 42 punct _ _ 39 literally literally ADV RB _ 42 advmod _ _ 40 " " PUNCT `` _ 42 punct _ _ 41 you you PRON PRP Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs 42 nsubj _ _ 42 good good ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 14 conj _ _ 43 ? ? PUNCT . _ 42 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=14:punct 44 " " PUNCT '' _ 42 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=14:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:":_ 45 . . PUNCT . _ 14 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=1:punct ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **add** *speech: assert* | gerund | | 吗 | | | to the end of a sentence | | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent 吗=Patient to end=Co-Patient | | 2 | **turn** | present | | 吗 | | a yes/no question | | | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent it=Theme into question=Trajectory | | 3 | **mean** | present | nǐ ma | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **is** *in a quote* | present | you | | | | | how *property* | tree rules | 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: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): R5-strong ×3, R6-punct-agree ×5. **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, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/12/) - next →: [Mandarin compared with English, 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/14/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/)