---
title: When something in an old text sounds odd, ask yourself: "Did this wo… — Words that changed their meaning · tree and pragmatics
description: When something in an old text sounds odd, ask yourself: "Did this word mean something different back then?" Who acts: something, you, word. A sentence of the lesson «Words that changed their meaning» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every
---

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# Words that changed their meaning, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When something in an old text sounds odd, ask yourself: "Did this word mean something different back then?"

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** something, you, word · **What happens:** sound, ask, mean · **To what, where:** yourself, something · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (something, you, word), 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:4
# text = When something in an old text sounds odd, ask yourself: "Did this word mean something different back then?"
# 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
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	7	mark	_	_
2	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	7	nsubj	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	text	text	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
7	sounds	sound	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
8	odd	odd	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	xcomp	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
10	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	yourself	yourself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	10	obj	_	_
12	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	_
14	Did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
15	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=10:parataxis
18	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	17	obj	_	_
19	different	different	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
20	back	back	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	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 | **sound** | present | something |  |  |  |  | odd *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | imperative | you *not said here* | yourself |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP that S»: agent=Agent yourself=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **mean** *in a quote* | past · do-support | this word | something |  |  | then |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Topic |

<!-- .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.

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**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:4`.

**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. **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/).

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