--- title: "Mistakes were made" is the classic example: it admits something wen… — Soft words for hard things: politics and governm… · tree and pragmatics description: "Mistakes were made" is the classic example: it admits something went wrong but never says who made the mistakes. Who acts: example, something. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: politics and government spin» of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tr --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/24-government-spin/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/) / [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/) / [Soft words for hard things: politics a…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/24-government-spin/) / 2 # Soft words for hard things: politics and government spin, sentence 2 "Mistakes were made" is the classic example: it admits something went wrong but never says who made the mistakes. **Who acts:** example, something · **What happens:** make, be, admit, go, not say · **To what, where:** Mistakes, classic example · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: politics and government spin» 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 (example, something), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:euphemisms:024-government-spin.lesson:2 # text = "Mistakes were made" is the classic example: it admits something went wrong but never says who made the mistakes. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = euphemisms # lesson = 024-government-spin.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): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1 1 " " PUNCT `` _ 4 punct _ _ 2 Mistakes mistake NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 nsubj:pass _ _ 3 were be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 4 aux:pass _ _ 4 made make VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 9 csubj _ _ 5 " " PUNCT '' _ 4 punct _ _ 6 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 9 cop _ _ 7 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 9 det _ _ 8 classic classic ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 9 amod _ _ 9 example example NOUN NN Number=Sing 0 root _ _ 10 : : PUNCT : _ 12 punct _ _ 11 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 12 nsubj _ _ 12 admits admit VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 9 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=9:acl:relcl 13 something something PRON NN Number=Sing|PronType=Ind 14 nsubj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=12:obj 14 went go VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 12 ccomp _ _ 15 wrong wrong ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 14 xcomp _ _ 16 but but CCONJ CC _ 18 cc _ _ 17 never never ADV RB PronType=Neg 18 advmod _ _ 18 says say VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 12 conj _ _ 19 who who PRON WP PronType=Rel 20 nsubj _ _ 20 made make VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 18 ccomp _ _ 21 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 22 det _ _ 22 mistakes mistake NOUN NNS Number=Plur 20 obj _ _ 23 . . PUNCT . _ 9 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=14:punct ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **make** *in a quote* | past · passive | | Mistakes | | | | | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product | | 2 | **is a** | present | | the classic example | | | | | tree rules | | 3 | **admit** *speech: other* | present | example | | | | | | vn confess-37.10 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 4 | **go** | past | something | | | | | wrong *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 5 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | present | example *not said here* | | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 6 | **make** | past | | the mistakes | | | | | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mistake=Product | 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:euphemisms:024-government-spin.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): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1, 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: [Soft words for hard things: politics a…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/24-government-spin/1/) - next →: [Soft words for hard things: politics a…, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/24-government-spin/3/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/24-government-spin/)