---
title: Then you borrow the tricks, not the words: a question opening, "show… — Putting it together: reading and writing like a… · tree and pragmatics
description: Then you borrow the tricks, not the words: a question opening, "show, don't tell" description ("her hands shook" instead of "she was scared"), and dialogue with a new line for each new speaker. Who acts: you, question, hands, twist. A sentence of the lesson «Putting it together: reading and writing 
---

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# Putting it together: reading and writing like a writer, sentence 1

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Then you borrow the tricks, not the words: a question opening, "show, don't tell" description ("her hands shook" instead of "she was scared"), and dialogue with a new line for each new speaker.

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**Who acts:** you, question, hands, twist · **What happens:** borrow, open, show, not tell, shook, be · **To what, where:** tricks, description · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Putting it together: reading and writing like a writer» 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, question, hands, twist), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:english:054-reading-and-writing-like-a-writer.lesson:1
# text = Then you borrow the tricks, not the words: a question opening, "show, don't tell" description ("her hands shook" instead of "she was scared"), and dialogue with a new line for each new speaker.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = english
# lesson = 054-reading-and-writing-like-a-writer.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): R6-punct-agree ×2, R7-rel-agree ×3
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	borrow	borrow	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	tricks	trick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	_
13	opening	open	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	acl	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=3:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:'':_
16	show	show	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=16:conj
21	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	_
22	description	description	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	iobj	_	_
23	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	27	punct	_	_
24	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	27	punct	_	_
25	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=27:compound
27	shook	shook	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	appos	_	_
28	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	27	punct	_	_
29	instead	instead	ADV	RB	ExtPos=ADP	34	mark	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=34:case
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	fixed	_	_
31	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	34	punct	_	_
32	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	34	nsubj	_	_
33	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	34	cop	_	_
34	scared	scared	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	advcl	_	_
35	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	34	punct	_	_
36	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	20	punct	_	_
37	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	39	punct	_	_
38	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
39	dialogue	dialogue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
40	with	with	ADP	IN	_	43	case	_	_
41	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	43	det	_	_
42	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	43	amod	_	_
43	line	line	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	nmod	_	_
44	for	for	ADP	IN	_	47	case	_	_
45	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	47	det	_	_
46	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	47	amod	_	_
47	speaker	speaker	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	43	nmod	_	_
48	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=16:punct
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **borrow** | present | you | the tricks and the words |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **open** | gerund | a question *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **show** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive · do-support |  |  | description |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent description=Recipient |
| 5 | **shook** *in a quote* |  | twist's hands |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **is** *in a quote* | past | twist |  |  |  |  | scared *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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:english:054-reading-and-writing-like-a-writer.lesson:1`.

**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): R6-punct-agree ×2, R7-rel-agree ×3. **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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