---
title: The rails steer the wheels, so the driver can only make the train go… — Trains and the Underground · tree and pragmatics
description: The rails steer the wheels, so the driver can only make the train go faster or slower; a train can never swerve round anything on the line. Who acts: rails, driver, train. A sentence of the lesson «Trains and the Underground» of the technology course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree
---

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# Trains and the Underground, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The rails steer the wheels, so the driver can only make the train go faster or slower; a train can never swerve round anything on the line.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** rails, driver, train · **What happens:** steer, make, go, not swerve · **To what, where:** wheels, train, anything

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Trains and the Underground» of the technology 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 (rails, driver, train), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:technology:021-trains-and-the-underground.lesson:1
# text = The rails steer the wheels, so the driver can only make the train go faster or slower; a train can never swerve round anything on the line.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = technology
# lesson = 021-trains-and-the-underground.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	2	det	_	_
2	rails	rail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	steer	steer	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	wheels	wheel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
7	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	driver	driver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	only	only	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	train	train	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
16	faster	fast	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	15	xcomp	_	_
17	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	slower	slow	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	16	conj	_	_
19	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	24	punct	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	train	train	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
22	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	24	advmod	_	_
24	swerve	swerve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	parataxis	_	_
25	round	round	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	24	obl	_	_
27	on	on	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	line	line	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	_
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	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 | **steer** | present | the rails | the wheels |  |  |  |  | vn accompany-51.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wheel=Theme |
| 2 | **make** | can | the driver | the train |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go** | infinitive | the train *not said here* |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **swerve** | can | a train |  |  | anything |  |  | vn meander-47.7-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme round anything=Location |

<!-- .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:technology:021-trains-and-the-underground.lesson:1`.

**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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