---
title: If you would not say it to their face, don't say it behind their back. — How to handle gossip: is it true, is it kind, wo… · tree and pragmatics
description: If you would not say it to their face, don't say it behind their back. Who acts: you. A sentence of the lesson «How to handle gossip: is it true, is it kind, would I say it to their face» of the adult life course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# How to handle gossip: is it true, is it kind, would I say it to their face, sentence 14

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If you would not say it to their face, don't say it behind their back.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** not say · **To what, where:** family, face, back · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «How to handle gossip: is it true, is it kind, would I say it to their face» of the adult life 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 (you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:adult-life:049-how-to-handle-gossip.lesson:14
# text = If you would not say it to their face, don't say it behind their back.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = adult-life
# lesson = 049-how-to-handle-gossip.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	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
11	do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	say	say	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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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 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* *a condition, not said to happen* | would | you | family | classmates's face |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Topic to face=Recipient |
| 2 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | imperative · do-support | you *not said here* | family |  | classmates's back |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent it=Topic |

<!-- .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:adult-life:049-how-to-handle-gossip.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): 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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- ← previous: [How to handle gossip: is it true, is i…, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/49-how-to-handle-gossip/13/)
- next →: [How to handle gossip: is it true, is i…, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/49-how-to-handle-gossip/15/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/49-how-to-handle-gossip/)