---
title: War means killing and destruction, and the people who start or run w… — Soft words for hard things: war, the military an… · tree and pragmatics
description: War means killing and destruction, and the people who start or run wars often do not want to say that plainly. Who acts: War, people. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: war, the military and violence» of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and t
---

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# Soft words for hard things: war, the military and violence, sentence 0

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
War means killing and destruction, and the people who start or run wars often do not want to say that plainly.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** War, people · **What happens:** mean, start, run, not want, say · **To what, where:** killing, wars, that · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: war, the military and violence» 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 (War, people), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:euphemisms:026-war-and-the-military.lesson:0
# text = War means killing and destruction, and the people who start or run wars often do not want to say that plainly.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = euphemisms
# lesson = 026-war-and-the-military.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): no change
1	War	war	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	killing	killing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	destruction	destruction	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	start	start	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	run	run	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
14	wars	war	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
15	often	often	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
16	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
21	that	that	PRON	DT	PronType=Dem	20	obj	_	_
22	plainly	plainly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed act=assert

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** | present | War | killing and destruction |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent killing=Topic |
| 2 | **start** | present | the people |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **run** | present | the people *not said here* | wars |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme war=Trajectory |
| 4 | **not** **want** | present · do-support | the people |  |  |  |  | often *property* | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 5 | **say** *speech: assert* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the people *not said here* | that |  |  |  | plainly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent that=Topic |

<!-- .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:026-war-and-the-military.lesson:0`.

**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): no change. **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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