--- title: For hundreds of years people also avoided saying the names of God, t… — Soft words for hard things: drinking and drugs a… · tree and pragmatics description: For hundreds of years people also avoided saying the names of God, the Devil and hell out loud, because it felt rude or unlucky, so they said "the man upstairs", "old Nick" or "down below" instead. Who acts: people, hell. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: drinking and drugs and r --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/31-drinking-drugs-religion-fate/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: drinking a…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/31-drinking-drugs-religion-fate/) / 2 # Soft words for hard things: drinking and drugs and religion and fate, sentence 2 For hundreds of years people also avoided saying the names of God, the Devil and hell out loud, because it felt rude or unlucky, so they said "the man upstairs", "old Nick" or "down below" instead. **Who acts:** people, hell · **What happens:** avoid, say, feel, name · **To what, where:** names, man, God · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: drinking and drugs and religion and fate» 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 (people, hell), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:euphemisms:031-drinking-drugs-religion-fate.lesson:2 # text = For hundreds of years people also avoided saying the names of God, the Devil and hell out loud, because it felt rude or unlucky, so they said "the man upstairs", "old Nick" or "down below" instead. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = euphemisms # lesson = 031-drinking-drugs-religion-fate.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): R3-conj-first ×1, R5-strong ×2, R6-punct-agree ×2, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 For for ADP IN _ 2 case _ _ 2 hundreds hundred NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 obl _ _ 3 of of ADP IN _ 4 case _ _ 4 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 2 nmod _ _ 5 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 nsubj _ _ 6 also also ADV RB _ 7 advmod _ _ 7 avoided avoid VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 8 saying say VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 7 xcomp _ _ 9 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 10 det _ _ 10 names name NOUN NNS Number=Plur 8 obj _ _ 11 of of ADP IN _ 12 case _ _ 12 God God PROPN NNP Number=Sing 10 nmod _ _ 13 , , PUNCT , _ 15 punct _ _ 14 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 15 det _ _ 15 Devil Devil PROPN NNP Number=Sing 12 conj _ _ 16 and and CCONJ CC _ 17 cc _ _ 17 hell hell NOUN NN Number=Sing 12 conj _ Agree=R3-conj-first|Haiku=15:conj 18 out out ADV RB _ 19 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=8:advmod 19 loud loud ADV RB _ 8 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=18:advmod 20 , , PUNCT , _ 23 punct _ _ 21 because because SCONJ IN _ 23 mark _ _ 22 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 23 nsubj _ _ 23 felt feel VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 7 advcl _ _ 24 rude rude ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 23 xcomp _ _ 25 or or CCONJ CC _ 26 cc _ _ 26 unlucky unlucky ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 24 conj _ _ 27 , , PUNCT , _ 30 punct _ _ 28 so so ADV RB _ 30 advmod _ _ 29 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 30 nsubj _ _ 30 said say VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 23 conj _ _ 31 " " PUNCT `` _ 33 punct _ _ 32 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 33 det _ _ 33 man man NOUN NN Number=Sing 30 obj _ _ 34 upstairs upstairs ADV RB _ 33 advmod _ _ 35 " " PUNCT '' _ 33 punct _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=33:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:``:_ 36 , , PUNCT , _ 33 punct _ _ 37 " " PUNCT `` _ 39 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=33:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:'':_ 38 old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 39 amod _ _ 39 Nick Nick PROPN NNP Number=Sing 33 conj _ _ 40 " " PUNCT '' _ 39 punct _ _ 41 or or CCONJ CC _ 43 cc _ _ 42 " " PUNCT `` _ 43 punct _ _ 43 down down ADV RB _ 33 conj _ _ 44 below below ADV RB _ 43 advmod _ _ 45 " " PUNCT '' _ 39 punct _ _ 46 instead instead ADV RB _ 30 advmod _ _ 47 . . PUNCT . _ 7 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=2:punct ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed voice=narrator | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **avoid** | past | people | | | | | for hundreds of years | vn avoid-52 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme | | 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | people *not said here* | the names of God and the Devil and hell | | | | loud *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent name=Topic | | 3 | **feel** | past | hell | | | | | rude *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus | | 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | People | the man and old Nick | | | | instead *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent man=Topic | | 5 | **name** | | | God and the Devil and hell | | | | | nom name «communication transitive»: of=patient | 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:031-drinking-drugs-religion-fate.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): R3-conj-first ×1, R5-strong ×2, R6-punct-agree ×2, R8-pos-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: drinking a…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/31-drinking-drugs-religion-fate/1/) - next →: [Soft words for hard things: drinking a…, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/31-drinking-drugs-religion-fate/3/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/31-drinking-drugs-religion-fate/)