--- title: Ella opens a very old book and reads that a man was "silly" because… — Words that changed their meaning · tree and pragmatics description: Ella opens a very old book and reads that a man was "silly" because he was happy and blessed; back then "silly" meant blessed, then it drifted to innocent, and only later to foolish. Who acts: Ella, man, book, silly. A sentence of the lesson «Words that changed their meaning» of the language course --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/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/) / [Words that changed their meaning](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/) / 1 # Words that changed their meaning, sentence 1 Ella opens a very old book and reads that a man was "silly" because he was happy and blessed; back then "silly" meant blessed, then it drifted to innocent, and only later to foolish. **Who acts:** Ella, man, book, silly, way · **What happens:** open, read, be, mean, drift · **To what, where:** old book, innocent · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Words that changed their meaning» 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 (Ella, man, book, silly), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:038-words-that-changed-their-meaning.lesson:1 # text = Ella opens a very old book and reads that a man was "silly" because he was happy and blessed; back then "silly" meant blessed, then it drifted to innocent, and only later to foolish. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 038-words-that-changed-their-meaning.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): R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 Ella Ella PROPN NNP Number=Sing 2 nsubj _ _ 2 opens open VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 3 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 4 very very ADV RB _ 5 advmod _ _ 5 old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 amod _ _ 6 book book NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 obj _ _ 7 and and CCONJ CC _ 8 cc _ _ 8 reads read VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 9 that that SCONJ IN _ 14 mark _ _ 10 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 11 det _ _ 11 man man NOUN NN Number=Sing 14 nsubj _ _ 12 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 14 cop _ _ 13 " " PUNCT `` _ 14 punct _ _ 14 silly silly ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 ccomp _ _ 15 " " PUNCT '' _ 14 punct _ _ 16 because because SCONJ IN _ 19 mark _ _ 17 he he PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 19 nsubj _ _ 18 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 19 cop _ _ 19 happy happy ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 advcl _ _ 20 and and CCONJ CC _ 21 cc _ _ 21 blessed blessed ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 19 conj _ _ 22 ; ; PUNCT , _ 28 punct _ _ 23 back back ADV RB _ 24 advmod _ _ 24 then then ADV RB PronType=Dem 28 advmod _ _ 25 " " PUNCT `` _ 26 punct _ _ 26 silly silly ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 28 nsubj _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=28:nsubj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing 27 " " PUNCT '' _ 26 punct _ _ 28 meant mean VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 2 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:conj 29 blessed blessed ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 28 xcomp _ _ 30 , , PUNCT , _ 33 punct _ _ 31 then then ADV RB PronType=Dem 33 advmod _ _ 32 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 33 nsubj _ _ 33 drifted drift VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 34 to to ADP IN _ 35 case _ _ 35 innocent innocent ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 33 obl _ _ 36 , , PUNCT , _ 41 punct _ _ 37 and and CCONJ CC _ 41 cc _ _ 38 only only ADV RB _ 39 advmod _ _ 39 later late ADV RBR Degree=Cmp 41 advmod _ _ 40 to to ADP IN _ 41 case _ _ 41 foolish foolish ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 33 conj _ _ 42 . . 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 | **open** | present | Ella | a old book | | | | | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location book=Theme | | 2 | **read** | present | Ella *not said here* | | | | | | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **is** *in a quote* | past | a man | | | | | silly *property* | tree rules | | 4 | **is** | past | book | | | | | happy *property* | tree rules | | 5 | **be** | | book *not said here* | | | | | | tree rules | | 6 | **mean** | past | silly | | | | then | blessed *property* | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 7 | **drift** | past | way | | | innocent | then | | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme to innocent=Destination | 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:038-words-that-changed-their-meaning.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): R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1. **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: [Words that changed their meaning, 0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/0/) - next →: [Words that changed their meaning, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/2/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/)