--- title: Euphemisms also soften illness: people say they are "under the weath… — Soft words for hard things: death and dying, ill… · tree and pragmatics description: Euphemisms also soften illness: people say they are "under the weather" instead of "ill", and older people said "the big C" because they were afraid even to say "cancer". Who acts: Euphemisms, people, older people. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: death and dying, illness and th --- [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/3/) [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/) / 3 # Soft words for hard things: death and dying, illness and the body, sentence 3 Euphemisms also soften illness: people say they are "under the weather" instead of "ill", and older people said "the big C" because they were afraid even to say "cancer". **Who acts:** Euphemisms, people, older people · **What happens:** soften, say, be · **To what, where:** illness, weather, big C, cancer · **Speech:** someone speaks here 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 (Euphemisms, people, older people), 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:3 # text = Euphemisms also soften illness: people say they are "under the weather" instead of "ill", and older people said "the big C" because they were afraid even to say "cancer". # 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): R6-punct-agree ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1 1 Euphemisms euphemism NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ _ 2 also also ADV RB _ 3 advmod _ _ 3 soften soften VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 illness illness NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 obj _ _ 5 : : PUNCT : _ 7 punct _ _ 6 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 nsubj _ _ 7 say say VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:advcl 8 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 18 nsubj _ _ 9 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 18 cop _ _ 10 " " PUNCT `` _ 13 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=18:punct 11 under under ADP IN _ 13 case _ _ 12 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 13 det _ _ 13 weather weather NOUN NN Number=Sing 18 obl _ _ 14 " " PUNCT '' _ 13 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=18:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:``:_ 15 instead instead ADV RB _ 18 advmod _ _ 16 of of ADP IN _ 18 case _ _ 17 " " PUNCT `` _ 18 punct _ _ 18 ill ill ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 7 ccomp _ _ 19 " " PUNCT '' _ 18 punct _ _ 20 , , PUNCT , _ 24 punct _ _ 21 and and CCONJ CC _ 24 cc _ _ 22 older old ADJ JJR Degree=Cmp 23 amod _ _ 23 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 24 nsubj _ _ 24 said say VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 7 conj _ _ 25 " " PUNCT `` _ 28 punct _ _ 26 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 28 det _ _ 27 big big ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 28 amod _ _ 28 C c NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 obj _ _ 29 " " PUNCT '' _ 28 punct _ _ 30 because because SCONJ IN _ 33 mark _ _ 31 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 33 nsubj _ _ 32 were be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 33 cop _ _ 33 afraid afraid ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 24 advcl _ _ 34 even even ADV RB _ 36 advmod _ _ 35 to to PART TO _ 36 mark _ _ 36 say say VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 33 xcomp _ _ 37 " " PUNCT `` _ 38 punct _ _ 38 cancer cancer NOUN NN Number=Sing 36 obj _ _ 39 " " PUNCT '' _ 38 punct _ _ 40 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed polarity=none, voice=narrator | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **soften** | present | Euphemisms | illness | | | | | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent illness=Patient | | 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | people | | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Euphemisms *= euphemism* | | | the weather | | ill, instead *property* | tree rules | | 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | older people | the big C | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent c=Topic | | 5 | **is** | past | Euphemisms *= euphemism* | | | | | afraid *property* | tree rules | | 6 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | Euphemisms *= euphemism* *not said here* | cancer | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent cancer=Topic | 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:3`. **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 ×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: death and…, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/3-death-and-feeling-poorly/2/) - next →: [Soft words for hard things: death and…, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/3-death-and-feeling-poorly/5/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/3-death-and-feeling-poorly/)