--- title: Mandarin verbs don't change for past or present; time is shown with… — Mandarin compared with English · tree and pragmatics description: Mandarin verbs don't change for past or present; time is shown with words like "yesterday" or small particles like "了" (le), so "我吃了" means "I ate". Who acts: Mandarin verbs, 我吃了, questions. A sentence of the lesson «Mandarin compared with English» of the language course of Mova's primary school wit --- [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/6/) [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/) / 6 # Mandarin compared with English, sentence 6 Mandarin verbs don't change for past or present; time is shown with words like "yesterday" or small particles like "了" (le), so "我吃了" means "I ate". **Who acts:** Mandarin verbs, 我吃了, questions · **What happens:** not change, show, mean, eat · **To what, where:** time · **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 (Mandarin verbs, 我吃了, questions), 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:6 # text = Mandarin verbs don't change for past or present; time is shown with words like "yesterday" or small particles like "了" (le), so "我吃了" means "I ate". # 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 ×1, R7-rel-agree ×4 1 Mandarin mandarin ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 amod _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:compound|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing 2 verbs verb NOUN NNS Number=Plur 5 nsubj _ _ 3 do do AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 aux _ _ 4 n't not PART RB Polarity=Neg 5 advmod _ _ 5 change change VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 6 for for ADP IN _ 7 case _ _ 7 past past ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 5 obl _ _ 8 or or CCONJ CC _ 9 cc _ _ 9 present present ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 7 conj _ _ 10 ; ; PUNCT : _ 13 punct _ _ 11 time time NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 nsubj:pass _ _ 12 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 13 aux:pass _ _ 13 shown show VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 5 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=5:advcl 14 with with ADP IN _ 15 case _ _ 15 words word NOUN NNS Number=Plur 13 obl _ _ 16 like like ADP IN _ 22 case _ _ 17 " " PUNCT `` _ 18 punct _ _ 18 yesterday yesterday NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 nmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=22:compound 19 " " PUNCT '' _ 18 punct _ _ 20 or or CCONJ CC _ 22 cc _ _ 21 small small ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 22 amod _ _ 22 particles particle NOUN NNS Number=Plur 15 nmod _ _ 23 like like ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 24 " " PUNCT `` _ 25 punct _ _ 25 了 了 NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 nmod _ _ 26 " " PUNCT '' _ 25 punct _ _ 27 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 28 punct _ _ 28 le le NOUN NN Number=Sing 25 appos _ _ 29 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 28 punct _ _ 30 , , PUNCT , _ 35 punct _ _ 31 so so ADV RB _ 35 advmod _ _ 32 " " PUNCT `` _ 33 punct _ _ 33 我吃了 我吃了 NOUN NN Number=Sing 35 nsubj _ _ 34 " " PUNCT '' _ 33 punct _ _ 35 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=5:advcl 36 " " PUNCT `` _ 38 punct _ _ 37 I I PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs 38 nsubj _ _ 38 ate eat VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 35 ccomp _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=35:parataxis 39 " " PUNCT '' _ 38 punct _ _ 40 . . PUNCT . _ 5 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **not** **change** | present · do-support | Mandarin verbs | | | | | for past | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 2 | **show** | present · passive | | time | | | | with words yesterday like small particles like 了 | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient | | 3 | **mean** | present | 我吃了 | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 4 | **eat** *in a quote* | past | questions *= question* | | | | | | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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:6`. **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 ×1, R7-rel-agree ×4. **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, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/5/) - next →: [Mandarin compared with English, 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/7/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/)