---
title: A cliché is a phrase used so often that it has lost its power, such… — Openings that hook the reader · tree and pragmatics
description: A cliché is a phrase used so often that it has lost its power, such as "It was a dark and stormy night". Who acts: cliché. A sentence of the lesson «Openings that hook the reader» of the english course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Openings that hook the reader, sentence 13

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A cliché is a phrase used so often that it has lost its power, such as "It was a dark and stormy night".

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**Who acts:** cliché · **What happens:** be, use, lose · **To what, where:** phrase, power

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Openings that hook the reader» of the english 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 (cliché), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:english:040-openings-that-hook-the-reader.lesson:13
# text = A cliché is a phrase used so often that it has lost its power, such as "It was a dark and stormy night".
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = english
# lesson = 040-openings-that-hook-the-reader.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	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	cliché	cliché	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	phrase	phrase	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	_
7	so	so	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	often	often	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
13	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
16	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|ExtPos=ADP	25	case	_	_
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	16	fixed	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	_
19	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
22	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	stormy	stormy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	conj	_	_
25	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	_
26	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	25	punct	_	_
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | a cliché | a phrase |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **use** | participle |  | a phrase *not said here* |  |  |  | often *property* | vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **lose** | present · perfect | cliché | cliché's power |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent power=Eventuality |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | past | cliché |  |  |  | such a dark night |  | tree rules |

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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:english:040-openings-that-hook-the-reader.lesson:13`.

**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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