---
title: A text saying a parcel is held and asking for a small payment is a c… — When money is tight · tree and pragmatics
description: A text saying a parcel is held and asking for a small payment is a common scam to steal bank details. Who acts: text, asking. A sentence of the lesson «When money is tight» of the adult life course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# When money is tight, sentence 18

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A text saying a parcel is held and asking for a small payment is a common scam to steal bank details.

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**Who acts:** text, asking · **What happens:** say, hold, ask, be, steal · **To what, where:** text, common scam, bank details · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «When money is tight» 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 (text, asking), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:adult-life:009-when-money-is-tight.lesson:18
# text = A text saying a parcel is held and asking for a small payment is a common scam to steal bank details.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = adult-life
# lesson = 009-when-money-is-tight.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 ×1
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	text	text	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	saying	say	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	parcel	parcel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj:pass	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=3:obj
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	held	hold	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
9	asking	ask	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	csubj	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	payment	payment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	common	common	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	scam	scam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	steal	steal	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	acl	_	_
20	bank	bank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	_
21	details	detail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	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 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | a text *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hold** | present · passive |  | a text |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | for a small payment | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | present | asking | a common scam |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **steal** | to-infinitive |  | bank details |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location detail=Theme |

<!-- .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:009-when-money-is-tight.lesson:18`.

**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 ×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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- ← previous: [When money is tight, 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/9-when-money-is-tight/17/)
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