--- title: In a mirror, writing looks back to front, which is why AMBULANCE is… — Mirrors, shadows and colours · tree and pragmatics description: In a mirror, writing looks back to front, which is why AMBULANCE is printed reversed on the front of ambulances, so drivers read it the right way in their mirrors. Who acts: writing, front, drivers. A sentence of the lesson «Mirrors, shadows and colours» of the world course of Mova's primary school --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/84-mirrors-shadows-colours/1/) [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/) / [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/) / [Mirrors, shadows and colours](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/84-mirrors-shadows-colours/) / 1 # Mirrors, shadows and colours, sentence 1 In a mirror, writing looks back to front, which is why AMBULANCE is printed reversed on the front of ambulances, so drivers read it the right way in their mirrors. **Who acts:** writing, front, drivers · **What happens:** look back, be, print, reverse, read · **To what, where:** AMBULANCE, front, mirror, mirrors This is a sentence of the lesson «Mirrors, shadows and colours» 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 (writing, front, drivers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:world:084-mirrors-shadows-colours.lesson:1 # text = In a mirror, writing looks back to front, which is why AMBULANCE is printed reversed on the front of ambulances, so drivers read it the right way in their mirrors. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = world # lesson = 084-mirrors-shadows-colours.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 ×2 1 In in ADP IN _ 3 case _ _ 2 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 3 det _ _ 3 mirror mirror NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 obl _ _ 4 , , PUNCT , _ 3 punct _ _ 5 writing writing NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 nsubj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=6:csubj|HaikuPos=VERB:VBG:VerbForm=Ger 6 looks look VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 7 back back ADV RB _ 6 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=9:advmod 8 to to ADP IN _ 9 case _ _ 9 front front NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 obl _ _ 10 , , PUNCT , _ 16 punct _ _ 11 which which PRON WDT PronType=Rel 13 nsubj _ _ 12 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 13 cop _ _ 13 why why ADV WRB PronType=Int 9 acl:relcl _ _ 14 AMBULANCE ambulance NOUN NN Number=Sing 16 nsubj:pass _ _ 15 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 16 aux:pass _ _ 16 printed print VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 13 ccomp _ _ 17 reversed reverse VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 16 advcl _ _ 18 on on ADP IN _ 20 case _ _ 19 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 20 det _ _ 20 front front NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 obl _ _ 21 of of ADP IN _ 22 case _ _ 22 ambulances ambulance NOUN NNS Number=Plur 20 nmod _ _ 23 , , PUNCT , _ 26 punct _ _ 24 so so ADV RB _ 26 advmod _ _ 25 drivers driver NOUN NNS Number=Plur 26 nsubj _ _ 26 read read VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 27 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 26 obj _ _ 28 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 30 det _ _ 29 right right ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 30 amod _ _ 30 way way NOUN NN Number=Sing 26 obl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=26:obj 31 in in ADP IN _ 33 case _ _ 32 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 33 nmod:poss _ _ 33 mirrors mirror NOUN NNS Number=Plur 26 obl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=30:nmod 34 . . PUNCT . _ 6 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 | **look back** | present | writing | | | | | to front; in a mirror | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in mirror=Theme | | 2 | **is** | present | front | | | | | why *property* | tree rules | | 3 | **print** | present · passive | | AMBULANCE | | | | | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme | | 4 | **reverse** | participle | | | | the front of ambulances | | | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient | | 5 | **read** | past | drivers | mirror | | drivers's mirrors | | the right way *obl* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic | 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:world:084-mirrors-shadows-colours.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): R5-strong ×2, R7-rel-agree ×2. **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: [Mirrors, shadows and colours, 0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/84-mirrors-shadows-colours/0/) - next →: [Mirrors, shadows and colours, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/84-mirrors-shadows-colours/2/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/84-mirrors-shadows-colours/)