---
title: The magic question is "How would we know?" If a cat had nine lives,… — How would we know? Asking experts and spotting t… · tree and pragmatics
description: The magic question is "How would we know?" If a cat had nine lives, what would we count? Who acts: magic question, cat, we. A sentence of the lesson «How would we know? Asking experts and spotting tricks» of the myths course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of eve
---

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# How would we know? Asking experts and spotting tricks, sentence 2

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The magic question is "How would we know?" If a cat had nine lives, what would we count?

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**Who acts:** magic question, cat, we · **What happens:** be, have, count · **To what, where:** nine lives · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «How would we know? Asking experts and spotting tricks» of the myths 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 (magic question, cat, we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:myths:030-how-would-we-know-asking-experts-and-spotting-tricks.lesson:2
# text = The magic question is "How would we know?" If a cat had nine lives, what would we count?
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = myths
# lesson = 030-how-would-we-know-asking-experts-and-spotting-tricks.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): no change
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	magic	magic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:outer	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
5	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	_
6	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
12	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	advcl	_	_
16	nine	nine	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	_
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	22	obj	_	_
20	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	count	count	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	parataxis	_	_
23	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed form=decl, act=assert, voice=narrator

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | would · present | the magic question |  |  |  |  | know *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | a cat | nine lives |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=Patient |
| 3 | **count** | would | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn multiply-108 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Theme |

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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:myths:030-how-would-we-know-asking-experts-and-spotting-tricks.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): no change. **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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- next →: [How would we know? Asking experts and…, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/30-how-would-we-know-asking-experts-and-spotting-tricks/3/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/30-how-would-we-know-asking-experts-and-spotting-tricks/)