---
title: A cliché simile has been used so often that it no longer surprises,… — Describing: senses, showing and precise words · tree and pragmatics
description: A cliché simile has been used so often that it no longer surprises, like "as quiet as a mouse". Who acts: simile. A sentence of the lesson «Describing: senses, showing and precise words» of the english course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Describing: senses, showing and precise words, sentence 12

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A cliché simile has been used so often that it no longer surprises, like "as quiet as a mouse".

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**Who acts:** simile · **What happens:** use, surprise · **To what, where:** cliché simile

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Describing: senses, showing and precise words» 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 (simile), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:english:041-describing-senses-showing-and-precise-words.lesson:12
# text = A cliché simile has been used so often that it no longer surprises, like "as quiet as a mouse".
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = english
# lesson = 041-describing-senses-showing-and-precise-words.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): R7-rel-agree ×2
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	cliché	cliché	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:amod|HaikuPos=ADJ:JJ:Degree=Pos
3	simile	simile	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
7	so	so	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	often	often	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	no	no	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	13	advmod	_	_
13	surprises	surprise	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	like	like	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	_
17	as	as	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=18:case|HaikuPos=ADP:IN:_
18	quiet	quiet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	parataxis	_	_
19	as	as	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	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 | **use** | present · perfect · passive |  | a cliché simile |  |  |  | often *property* | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Theme clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **surprise** | present | simile |  |  |  |  | long *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP-PRO-ARB»: agent=Stimulus |

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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:041-describing-senses-showing-and-precise-words.lesson:12`.

**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): 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/).

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