---
title: A rumour is a story passed on without being checked; it often grows… — The rumour that grows · tree and pragmatics
description: A rumour is a story passed on without being checked; it often grows or changes each time it is told. Who acts: rumour, time. A sentence of the lesson «The rumour that grows» of the world course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The rumour that grows, sentence 14

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A rumour is a story passed on without being checked; it often grows or changes each time it is told.

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**Who acts:** rumour, time · **What happens:** be, pass on, check, grow, change, tell · **To what, where:** story, rumour · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «The rumour that grows» of the world 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 (rumour, time), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:world:167-the-rumour-that-grows.lesson:14
# text = A rumour is a story passed on without being checked; it often grows or changes each time it is told.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = world
# lesson = 167-the-rumour-that-grows.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
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	rumour	rumour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	checked	check	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	advcl	_	_
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	often	often	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	grows	grow	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=14:cc
16	changes	change	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
17	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	18	det	_	_
18	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl:unmarked	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
20	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl:relcl	_	_
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | a rumour | a story |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **pass on** | participle |  | a story *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **check** | gerund · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP» |
| 4 | **grow** | present | rumour |  |  |  | time | often *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **change** | present | rumour *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present · passive | each time *not said here* | rumour |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |

<!-- .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:world:167-the-rumour-that-grows.lesson:14`.

**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. **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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