---
title: Chinese whispers (also called telephone) is a game that shows how a… — The rumour that grows · tree and pragmatics
description: Chinese whispers (also called telephone) is a game that shows how a message changes as it passes along a line. Who acts: Chinese whispers, game, message. 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
---

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# The rumour that grows, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Chinese whispers (also called telephone) is a game that shows how a message changes as it passes along a line.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Chinese whispers, game, message · **What happens:** call, be, show, change, pass · **To what, where:** telephone, game, line · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Chinese whispers, game, message), 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:15
# text = Chinese whispers (also called telephone) is a game that shows how a message changes as it passes along a line.
# 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): no change
1	Chinese	Chinese	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	whispers	whisper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
3	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	6	punct	_	_
4	also	also	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl	_	_
6	telephone	telephone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	_
7	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	6	punct	_	_
8	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	game	game	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
11	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	shows	show	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	message	message	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	changes	change	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
17	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	passes	pass	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
20	along	along	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	line	line	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	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 | **call** | participle |  | telephone *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | Chinese whispers | a game |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **show** | present | a game |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **change** | present | a message |  |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **pass** | present | message |  |  | a line |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme along line=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:world:167-the-rumour-that-grows.lesson:15`.

**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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