---
title: And some words spin a failure to sound better, such as calling a bad… — Soft words for hard things: religion and fate an… · tree and pragmatics
description: And some words spin a failure to sound better, such as calling a bad result "suboptimal" or a disaster "a blessing in disguise". Who acts: words, failure. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: religion and fate and failure and mistakes» of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary scho
---

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# Soft words for hard things: religion and fate and failure and mistakes, sentence 3

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And some words spin a failure to sound better, such as calling a bad result "suboptimal" or a disaster "a blessing in disguise".

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**Who acts:** words, failure · **What happens:** spin, sound, call · **To what, where:** failure, bad result · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: religion and fate and failure and mistakes» 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 (words, failure), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:euphemisms:032-religion-fate-failure.lesson:3
# text = And some words spin a failure to sound better, such as calling a bad result "suboptimal" or a disaster "a blessing in disguise".
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = euphemisms
# lesson = 032-religion-fate-failure.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	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	3	det	_	_
3	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	spin	spin	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	failure	failure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	sound	sound	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
9	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	xcomp	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|ExtPos=SCONJ	13	mark	_	_
12	as	as	ADP	IN	_	11	fixed	_	_
13	calling	call	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	result	result	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	_
18	suboptimal	suboptimal	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
20	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	disaster	disaster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
23	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	blessing	blessing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	appos	_	_
26	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	disguise	disguise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	_
28	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	25	punct	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spin** | present | some words | a failure |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent failure=Theme |
| 2 | **sound** | to-infinitive | some words *not said here* | a failure *not said here* |  |  |  | good *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **call** | gerund | a failure *not said here* | a bad result or a disaster |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent result=Recipient |

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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:032-religion-fate-failure.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): 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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