---
title: A company that sacks two hundred people may announce "a headcount re… — Soft words for hard things: work, firing and the… · tree and pragmatics
description: A company that sacks two hundred people may announce "a headcount reduction", as if it only changed a number on a chart. Who acts: company. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: work, firing and the economy» of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree a
---

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# Soft words for hard things: work, firing and the economy, sentence 2

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A company that sacks two hundred people may announce "a headcount reduction", as if it only changed a number on a chart.

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**Who acts:** company · **What happens:** sack, announce, change · **To what, where:** hundred people, headcount reduction, number, chart

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: work, firing and the economy» of the euphemisms 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 (company), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:euphemisms:021-work-firing-and-the-economy.lesson:2
# text = A company that sacks two hundred people may announce "a headcount reduction", as if it only changed a number on a chart.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = euphemisms
# lesson = 021-work-firing-and-the-economy.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	2	det	_	_
2	company	company	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
3	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	_
4	sacks	sack	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	acl:relcl	_	_
5	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	compound	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=6:nummod
6	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
7	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
8	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	announce	announce	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	headcount	headcount	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	reduction	reduction	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
17	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	only	only	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	changed	change	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=9:conj
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	on	on	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	chart	chart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sack** | present | a company | hundred people |  |  |  |  | vn fire-10.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent people=Theme |
| 2 | **announce** *speech: other* | may | a company | a headcount reduction |  |  |  |  | vn reflexive\_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent reduction=Theme |
| 3 | **change** | past | company | a number |  | a chart |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent number=Patient |

<!-- .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:euphemisms:021-work-firing-and-the-economy.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 ×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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