--- title: "On his last legs" means close to dying or worn out; a car or a sofa… — Soft words for hard things: death and dying, ill… · tree and pragmatics description: "On his last legs" means close to dying or worn out; a car or a sofa can also be on its last legs. Who acts: car. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: death and dying, illness and the body» of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/3-death-and-feeling-poorly/10/) [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: death and…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/3-death-and-feeling-poorly/) / 10 # Soft words for hard things: death and dying, illness and the body, sentence 10 "On his last legs" means close to dying or worn out; a car or a sofa can also be on its last legs. **Who acts:** car · **What happens:** mean, die, wear out, be · **To what, where:** last legs This is a sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: death and dying, illness and the body» 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 (car), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:euphemisms:003-death-and-feeling-poorly.lesson:10 # text = "On his last legs" means close to dying or worn out; a car or a sofa can also be on its last legs. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = euphemisms # lesson = 003-death-and-feeling-poorly.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): R1-cc-next ×1, R7-rel-agree ×3 1 " " PUNCT `` _ 7 punct _ _ 2 On on ADP IN _ 5 case _ _ 3 his his PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 5 nmod:poss _ _ 4 last last ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 5 amod _ _ 5 legs leg NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 obl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=7:nsubj 6 " " PUNCT '' _ 5 punct _ _ 7 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 8 close close ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 7 xcomp _ _ 9 to to SCONJ IN _ 10 mark _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=10:case|HaikuPos=ADP:IN:_ 10 dying die VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 8 advcl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=8:obl 11 or or CCONJ CC _ 12 cc _ Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=10:cc 12 worn wear VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 10 conj _ _ 13 out out ADP RP _ 12 compound:prt _ _ 14 ; ; PUNCT : _ 7 punct _ _ 15 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 16 det _ _ 16 car car NOUN NN Number=Sing 26 nsubj _ _ 17 or or CCONJ CC _ 19 cc _ _ 18 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 19 det _ _ 19 sofa sofa NOUN NN Number=Sing 16 conj _ _ 20 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 26 aux _ _ 21 also also ADV RB _ 26 advmod _ _ 22 be be AUX VB VerbForm=Inf 26 cop _ _ 23 on on ADP IN _ 26 case _ _ 24 its its PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 26 nmod:poss _ _ 25 last last ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 26 amod _ _ 26 legs leg NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 parataxis _ _ 27 . . PUNCT . _ 7 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **mean** | present | | | | departed's last legs | | close *property* | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 2 | **die** | gerund | | | | | | | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute | | 3 | **wear out** | participle | | | | | | | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V PP-Conative»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **is** | can | a car or a sofa | | | sleep's last legs | | | 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:euphemisms:003-death-and-feeling-poorly.lesson:10`. **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): R1-cc-next ×1, 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/). - ← previous: [Soft words for hard things: death and…, 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/3-death-and-feeling-poorly/9/) - next →: [Soft words for hard things: death and…, 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/3-death-and-feeling-poorly/11/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/3-death-and-feeling-poorly/)