--- title: The historic present tells a past story in the present tense to make… — Tenses: past, present and future · tree and pragmatics description: The historic present tells a past story in the present tense to make it exciting; in written stories you usually choose one tense and keep it. Who acts: historic present, you. A sentence of the lesson «Tenses: past, present and future» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its depende --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/8-tenses-past-present-future/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/) / [Tenses: past, present and future](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/8-tenses-past-present-future/) / 6 # Tenses: past, present and future, sentence 6 The historic present tells a past story in the present tense to make it exciting; in written stories you usually choose one tense and keep it. **Who acts:** historic present, you · **What happens:** tell, make, write, choose, keep · **To what, where:** past story, present tense, story, one tense, written stories, Tense · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Tenses: past, present and future» 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 (historic present, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:008-tenses-past-present-future.lesson:6 # text = The historic present tells a past story in the present tense to make it exciting; in written stories you usually choose one tense and keep it. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 008-tenses-past-present-future.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 ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1 1 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 3 det _ _ 2 historic historic ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 amod _ _ 3 present present NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 nsubj _ _ 4 tells tell VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 5 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 7 det _ _ 6 past past ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 7 amod _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=7:compound|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing 7 story story NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 obj _ _ 8 in in ADP IN _ 11 case _ _ 9 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 11 det _ _ 10 present present ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 11 amod _ _ 11 tense tense NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 obl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=7:nmod 12 to to PART TO _ 13 mark _ _ 13 make make VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 4 advcl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=11:acl 14 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 13 obj _ _ 15 exciting exciting ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 xcomp _ _ 16 ; ; PUNCT , _ 4 punct _ _ 17 in in ADP IN _ 19 case _ _ 18 written write VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 19 amod _ _ 19 stories story NOUN NNS Number=Plur 22 obl _ _ 20 you you PRON PRP Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs 22 nsubj _ _ 21 usually usually ADV RB _ 22 advmod _ _ 22 choose choose VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 4 parataxis _ _ 23 one one NUM CD NumForm=Word|NumType=Card 24 nummod _ _ 24 tense tense NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 obj _ _ 25 and and CCONJ CC _ 26 cc _ _ 26 keep keep VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 22 conj _ _ 27 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 26 obj _ _ 28 . . PUNCT . _ 4 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 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present | the historic present | a past story | | the present tense | | | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent story=Recipient | | 2 | **make** | to-infinitive | the historic present *not said here* | story | | | | exciting *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset it=Product | | 3 | **write** | participle | | | | | | | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **choose** | present | you | one tense | | written stories | | usually *property* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tense=Theme | | 5 | **keep** | infinitive | you *not said here* | Tense | | | | | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme | 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:008-tenses-past-present-future.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 ×2, 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/). - ← previous: [Tenses: past, present and future, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/8-tenses-past-present-future/5/) - next →: [Tenses: past, present and future, 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/8-tenses-past-present-future/8/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/8-tenses-past-present-future/)