--- title: Some old "rules" are myths: ending a sentence with a preposition ("W… — Prepositions and conjunctions: little words that… · tree and pragmatics description: Some old "rules" are myths: ending a sentence with a preposition ("What are you looking at?") is natural English, and starting with And or But can be fine for effect. Who acts: old rules, you, ending. A sentence of the lesson «Prepositions and conjunctions: little words that hold sentences together» --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/6-prepositions-and-conjunctions/4/) [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/) / [Prepositions and conjunctions: little…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/6-prepositions-and-conjunctions/) / 4 # Prepositions and conjunctions: little words that hold sentences together, sentence 4 Some old "rules" are myths: ending a sentence with a preposition ("What are you looking at?") is natural English, and starting with And or But can be fine for effect. **Who acts:** old rules, you, ending · **What happens:** be, end, look, start · **To what, where:** myths, sentence, looking natural English This is a sentence of the lesson «Prepositions and conjunctions: little words that hold sentences together» 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 (old rules, you, ending), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:006-prepositions-and-conjunctions.lesson:4 # text = Some old "rules" are myths: ending a sentence with a preposition ("What are you looking at?") is natural English, and starting with And or But can be fine for effect. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 006-prepositions-and-conjunctions.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): R1-cc-next ×1, R2-punct-next ×1 1 Some some DET DT PronType=Ind 4 det _ _ 2 old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 amod _ _ 3 " " PUNCT `` _ 4 punct _ _ 4 rules rule NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 nsubj _ _ 5 " " PUNCT '' _ 4 punct _ _ 6 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 7 cop _ _ 7 myths myth NOUN NNS Number=Plur 0 root _ _ 8 : : PUNCT : _ 7 punct _ _ 9 ending end VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 27 csubj _ _ 10 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 11 det _ _ 11 sentence sentence NOUN NN Number=Sing 9 obj _ _ 12 with with ADP IN _ 14 case _ _ 13 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 14 det _ _ 14 preposition preposition NOUN NN Number=Sing 9 obl _ _ 15 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 20 punct _ _ 16 " " PUNCT `` _ 20 punct _ _ 17 What what PRON WP PronType=Rel 20 obl _ _ 18 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 20 aux _ _ 19 you you PRON PRP Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs 20 nsubj _ _ 20 looking look VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 27 amod _ _ 21 at at ADP IN _ 20 obl _ _ 22 ? ? PUNCT . _ 20 punct _ _ 23 " " PUNCT '' _ 20 punct _ _ 24 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 20 punct _ _ 25 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 27 cop _ _ 26 natural natural ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 27 amod _ _ 27 English English PROPN NNP Number=Sing 7 parataxis _ _ 28 , , PUNCT , _ 30 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=9:punct 29 and and CCONJ CC _ 30 cc _ Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=9:cc 30 starting start VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 9 conj _ _ 31 with with SCONJ IN _ 37 mark _ _ 32 And and CCONJ CC _ 37 cc _ _ 33 or or CCONJ CC _ 37 cc _ _ 34 But but CCONJ CC _ 37 cc _ _ 35 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 37 aux _ _ 36 be be AUX VB VerbForm=Inf 37 cop _ _ 37 fine fine ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 30 ccomp _ _ 38 for for ADP IN _ 39 case _ _ 39 effect effect NOUN NN Number=Sing 37 obl _ _ 40 . . PUNCT . _ 7 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: character - polarity: none - teacher: changed form=decl, act=assert | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **is a** | present | some old rules | myths | | | | | tree rules | | 2 | **end** | gerund | | a sentence | | | | with a preposition | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality PP.subeventuality»: agent=Affector sentence=Eventuality with preposition=Subeventuality | | 3 | **look** *in a quote* | present · progressive | you | looking natural English | | | | | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | | 4 | **is a** | present | ending | looking natural English | | | | | tree rules | | 5 | **start** | gerund | | | | | | | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality | | 6 | **is** | can | | | | | | for effect; fine *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:006-prepositions-and-conjunctions.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): R1-cc-next ×1, R2-punct-next ×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: [Prepositions and conjunctions: little…, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/6-prepositions-and-conjunctions/3/) - next →: [Prepositions and conjunctions: little…, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/6-prepositions-and-conjunctions/5/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/6-prepositions-and-conjunctions/)