--- title: «Here's a pretty kettle of fish!» means here's a nice mess; «make th… — Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Writte… · tree and pragmatics description: «Here's a pretty kettle of fish!» means here's a nice mess; «make the best of a bad job» means do what you can when things go wrong. Who acts: pretty kettle, things. A sentence of the lesson «Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 1: a broken spear and a picture on birch-bark» of th --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/17/) [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/) / [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/) / [Just So Stories, How the First Letter…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/) / 17 # Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 1: a broken spear and a picture on birch-bark, sentence 17 «Here's a pretty kettle of fish!» means here's a nice mess; «make the best of a bad job» means do what you can when things go wrong. **Who acts:** pretty kettle, things · **What happens:** be, mean, make, do, go · **To what, where:** nice mess, best · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 1: a broken spear and a picture on birch-bark» of the books 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 (pretty kettle, things), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:books:084-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear.lesson:17 # text = «Here's a pretty kettle of fish!» means here's a nice mess; «make the best of a bad job» means do what you can when things go wrong. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = books # lesson = 084-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear.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): R8-pos-agree ×1 1 « « PUNCT `` _ 2 punct _ _ 2 Here here ADV RB PronType=Dem 0 root _ _ 3 's be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 2 cop _ _ 4 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 5 pretty pretty ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 amod _ _ 6 kettle kettle NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 nsubj _ _ 7 of of ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 8 fish fish NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 nmod _ _ 9 ! ! PUNCT . _ 2 punct _ _ 10 » » PUNCT '' _ 2 punct _ _ 11 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 2 parataxis _ _ 12 here here ADV RB PronType=Dem 16 advmod _ _ 13 's be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 16 cop _ _ 14 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 16 det _ _ 15 nice nice ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 16 amod _ _ 16 mess mess NOUN NN Number=Sing 11 ccomp _ _ 17 ; ; PUNCT , _ 19 punct _ _ 18 « « PUNCT `` _ 19 punct _ _ 19 make make VERB VB Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 2 parataxis _ _ 20 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 21 det _ _ 21 best good ADJ JJS Degree=Sup 19 obj _ _ 22 of of ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 23 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 25 det _ _ 24 bad bad ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 25 amod _ _ 25 job job NOUN NN Number=Sing 21 nmod _ _ 26 » » PUNCT '' _ 19 punct _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=19:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:,:_ 27 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 2 parataxis _ _ 28 do do VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 27 ccomp _ _ 29 what what PRON WP PronType=Int 28 obj _ _ 30 you you PRON PRP Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs 31 nsubj _ _ 31 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 29 acl:relcl _ _ 32 when when SCONJ WRB _ 34 mark _ _ 33 things thing NOUN NNS Number=Plur 34 nsubj _ _ 34 go go VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 28 advcl _ _ 35 wrong wrong ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 34 xcomp _ _ 36 . . PUNCT . _ 2 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | a pretty kettle of fish | | | | | here *property* | tree rules | | 2 | **mean** | present | | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **is a** | present | | a nice mess | | here | | | tree rules | | 4 | **make** *in a quote* | infinitive | | the best of a bad job | | | | | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset good=Product | | 5 | **mean** | present | | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 6 | **do** | infinitive | | | | | | | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality | | 7 | **go** | present | things | | | | | wrong *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | 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:books:084-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear.lesson:17`. **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): R8-pos-agree ×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/). - ← previous: [Just So Stories, How the First Letter…, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/16/) - next →: [Just So Stories, How the First Letter…, 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/18/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/)