--- title: Show, don't tell: instead of "She was scared", write what fear looks… — Describing: senses, showing and precise words · tree and pragmatics description: Show, don't tell: instead of "She was scared", write what fear looks like ("Her hands shook. Who acts: you, word, fear, hands. 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 --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/41-describing-senses-showing-and-precise-words/2/) [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/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / [Describing: senses, showing and precis…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/41-describing-senses-showing-and-precise-words/) / 2 # Describing: senses, showing and precise words, sentence 2 Show, don't tell: instead of "She was scared", write what fear looks like ("Her hands shook. **Who acts:** you, word, fear, hands · **What happens:** show, not tell, be, write, look, shook · **Speech:** someone speaks here 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 (you, word, fear, hands), 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:2 # text = Show, don't tell: instead of "She was scared", write what fear looks like ("Her hands shook. # 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 ×1 1 Show show VERB VB Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 2 , , PUNCT , _ 5 punct _ _ 3 do do AUX VB Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 5 aux _ _ 4 n't not PART RB Polarity=Neg 5 advmod _ _ 5 tell tell VERB VB Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 1 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=1:conj 6 : : PUNCT : _ 1 punct _ _ 7 instead instead ADV RB ExtPos=ADP 12 case _ _ 8 of of ADP IN _ 7 fixed _ _ 9 " " PUNCT `` _ 12 punct _ _ 10 She she PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 12 nsubj _ _ 11 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 12 cop _ _ 12 scared scared ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 5 ccomp _ _ 13 " " PUNCT '' _ 12 punct _ _ 14 , , PUNCT , _ 15 punct _ _ 15 write write VERB VB Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 1 conj _ _ 16 what what DET WDT PronType=Int 17 det _ _ 17 fear fear NOUN NN Number=Sing 18 nsubj _ _ 18 looks look VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 15 ccomp _ _ 19 like like SCONJ IN _ 24 mark _ _ 20 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 24 punct _ _ 21 " " PUNCT `` _ 24 punct _ _ 22 Her her PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 23 nmod:poss _ _ 23 hands hand NOUN NNS Number=Plur 24 nsubj _ _ 24 shook shook VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 18 advcl _ _ 25 . . PUNCT . _ 1 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: command - act: request - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **show** | imperative | you *not said here* | | | | | | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 2 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | infinitive · do-support | | | | | | | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **is** *in a quote* | past | word | | | | | scared *property* | tree rules | | 4 | **write** | infinitive | you *not said here* | | | | | | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 5 | **look** | present | what fear | | | | | | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | | 6 | **shook** *in a quote* | past | word's hands | | | | | | tree rules | 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:english:041-describing-senses-showing-and-precise-words.lesson:2`. **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 ×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: [Describing: senses, showing and precis…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/41-describing-senses-showing-and-precise-words/1/) - next →: [Describing: senses, showing and precis…, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/41-describing-senses-showing-and-precise-words/3/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/41-describing-senses-showing-and-precise-words/)