---
title: "Bats in the belfry" means mad; it is an old-fashioned joke, as if b… — Soft words for hard things: stupidity and madnes… · tree and pragmatics
description: "Bats in the belfry" means mad; it is an old-fashioned joke, as if bats were flapping about in the bell tower of one's head. Who acts: Bats, belfry. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: stupidity and madness and rudeness and swearing» of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary schoo
---

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# Soft words for hard things: stupidity and madness and rudeness and swearing, sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Bats in the belfry" means mad; it is an old-fashioned joke, as if bats were flapping about in the bell tower of one's head.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Bats, belfry · **What happens:** mean, be, flap · **To what, where:** fashioned joke

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: stupidity and madness and rudeness and swearing» 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 (Bats, belfry), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:euphemisms:037-bats-and-gosh.lesson:6
# text = "Bats in the belfry" means mad; it is an old-fashioned joke, as if bats were flapping about in the bell tower of one's head.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = euphemisms
# lesson = 037-bats-and-gosh.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): R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	_
2	Bats	bat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	belfry	belfry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
7	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	mad	mad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	xcomp	_	_
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
12	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
13	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	_
15	fashioned	fashioned	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	joke	joke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=7:conj
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
20	bats	bat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
21	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	flapping	flap	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
23	about	about	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
26	bell	bell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	compound	_	_
27	tower	tower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
28	of	of	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
29	one	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=31:nmod:poss|HaikuPos=PRON:PRP$:Case=Gen|Poss=Yes|PronType=Ind
30	's	's	PART	POS	_	29	case	_	_
31	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nmod	_	_
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** | present | Bats in the belfry |  |  |  |  | mad *property* | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | belfry | a fashioned joke |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **flap** | past · progressive | bats |  |  |  |  | about the bell tower of one's head | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme about tower=Location |

<!-- .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:037-bats-and-gosh.lesson:6`.

**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): R7-rel-agree ×1, 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/).

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