--- title: English speakers put adjectives in a set order without ever being ta… — Adjectives and adverbs: describing things and ac… · tree and pragmatics description: English speakers put adjectives in a set order without ever being taught it: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, where from, material, purpose; that is why "a big red ball" sounds right and "a red big ball" sounds weird. Who acts: English speakers, that, big red ball, red big ball. A sentence of the --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/2/) [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/) / [Adjectives and adverbs: describing thi…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/) / 2 # Adjectives and adverbs: describing things and actions, sentence 2 English speakers put adjectives in a set order without ever being taught it: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, where from, material, purpose; that is why "a big red ball" sounds right and "a red big ball" sounds weird. **Who acts:** English speakers, that, big red ball, red big ball · **What happens:** put, teach, be, sound · **To what, where:** adjectives, set order, opinion, order This is a sentence of the lesson «Adjectives and adverbs: describing things and actions» 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 (English speakers, that, big red ball, red big ball), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:004-adjectives-and-adverbs.lesson:2 # text = English speakers put adjectives in a set order without ever being taught it: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, where from, material, purpose; that is why "a big red ball" sounds right and "a red big ball" sounds weird. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 004-adjectives-and-adverbs.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 ×1, R7-rel-agree ×5 1 English English PROPN NNP Number=Sing 2 amod _ _ 2 speakers speaker NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ _ 3 put put VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 adjectives adjective NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 obj _ _ 5 in in ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 6 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 8 det _ _ 7 set set NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 compound _ _ 8 order order NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 obl _ _ 9 without without SCONJ IN _ 12 mark _ _ 10 ever ever ADV RB PronType=Ind 12 advmod _ _ 11 being be AUX VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 12 aux:pass _ _ 12 taught teach VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 3 advcl _ _ 13 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 12 obj _ _ 14 : : PUNCT : _ 15 punct _ _ 15 opinion opinion NOUN NN Number=Sing 12 obl _ _ 16 , , PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ _ 17 size size NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 conj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=15:parataxis 18 , , PUNCT , _ 19 punct _ _ 19 age age NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 conj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=15:parataxis 20 , , PUNCT , _ 21 punct _ _ 21 shape shape NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 conj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=15:parataxis 22 , , PUNCT , _ 23 punct _ _ 23 colour colour NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 conj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=15:parataxis 24 , , PUNCT , _ 25 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=28:punct 25 where where ADV WRB PronType=Rel 28 advmod _ _ 26 from from ADP IN _ 28 case _ _ 27 , , PUNCT , _ 28 punct _ _ 28 material material NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 conj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=15:nmod 29 , , PUNCT , _ 30 punct _ _ 30 purpose purpose NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 conj _ _ 31 ; ; PUNCT : _ 41 punct _ _ 32 that that PRON DT Number=Sing|PronType=Dem 34 nsubj _ _ 33 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 34 cop _ _ 34 why why ADV WRB PronType=Int 41 advmod _ _ 35 " " PUNCT `` _ 39 punct _ _ 36 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 39 det _ _ 37 big big ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 39 amod _ _ 38 red red ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 39 amod _ _ 39 ball ball NOUN NN Number=Sing 41 nsubj _ _ 40 " " PUNCT '' _ 39 punct _ _ 41 sounds sound VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ _ 42 right right ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 41 xcomp _ _ 43 and and CCONJ CC _ 50 cc _ _ 44 " " PUNCT `` _ 48 punct _ _ 45 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 48 det _ _ 46 red red ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 48 amod _ _ 47 big big ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 48 amod _ _ 48 ball ball NOUN NN Number=Sing 50 nsubj _ _ 49 " " PUNCT '' _ 48 punct _ _ 50 sounds sound VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 41 conj _ _ 51 weird weird ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 50 xcomp _ _ 52 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **put** | present | English speakers | adjectives | | a set order | | | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent adjective=Theme in order=Destination | | 2 | **teach** *speech: other* | gerund · passive | English speakers *not said here* | opinion and size and age and shape and colour and material and purpose | order | | ever | | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: it=Recipient | | 3 | **is** | present | that | | | | | why *property* | tree rules | | 4 | **sound** | present | a big red ball | | | | | right *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus | | 5 | **sound** | present | a red big ball | | | | | weird *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus | 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:004-adjectives-and-adverbs.lesson:2`. **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 ×1, R7-rel-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: [Adjectives and adverbs: describing thi…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/1/) - next →: [Adjectives and adverbs: describing thi…, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/3/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/)