--- title: People use euphemisms about the body and illness to be polite, to pr… — Soft words for hard things: illness, disability… · tree and pragmatics description: People use euphemisms about the body and illness to be polite, to protect someone's feelings, or because a subject felt embarrassing. Who acts: People, subject. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: illness, disability and the body» of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school w --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/4-illness-disability-and-babies/0/) [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: illness, d…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/4-illness-disability-and-babies/) / 0 # Soft words for hard things: illness, disability and the body, sentence 0 People use euphemisms about the body and illness to be polite, to protect someone's feelings, or because a subject felt embarrassing. **Who acts:** People, subject · **What happens:** use, be, protect, feel · **To what, where:** euphemisms, feelings This is a sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: illness, disability 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 (People, subject), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:euphemisms:004-illness-disability-and-babies.lesson:0 # text = People use euphemisms about the body and illness to be polite, to protect someone's feelings, or because a subject felt embarrassing. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = euphemisms # lesson = 004-illness-disability-and-babies.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): R5-strong ×1 1 People people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 2 nsubj _ _ 2 use use VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 3 euphemisms euphemism NOUN NNS Number=Plur 2 obj _ _ 4 about about ADP IN _ 6 case _ _ 5 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 6 body body NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 nmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=2:obl 7 and and CCONJ CC _ 8 cc _ _ 8 illness illness NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 conj _ _ 9 to to PART TO _ 11 mark _ _ 10 be be AUX VB VerbForm=Inf 11 cop _ _ 11 polite polite ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 advcl _ _ 12 , , PUNCT , _ 14 punct _ _ 13 to to PART TO _ 14 mark _ _ 14 protect protect VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 11 conj _ _ 15 someone someone PRON NN Number=Sing|PronType=Ind 17 nmod:poss _ _ 16 's 's PART POS _ 15 case _ _ 17 feelings feeling NOUN NNS Number=Plur 14 obj _ _ 18 , , PUNCT , _ 23 punct _ _ 19 or or CCONJ CC _ 23 cc _ _ 20 because because SCONJ IN _ 23 mark _ _ 21 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 22 det _ _ 22 subject subject NOUN NN Number=Sing 23 nsubj _ _ 23 felt feel VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 24 embarrassing embarrassing ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 23 xcomp _ _ 25 . . PUNCT . _ 2 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **use** | present | People | euphemisms | | | | about the body and illness | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent euphemism=Patient | | 2 | **is** | to-infinitive | People *not said here* | | | | | polite *property* | tree rules | | 3 | **protect** | to-infinitive | People *not said here* | someone's feelings | | | | | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent feeling=Beneficiary | | 4 | **feel** | past | a subject | | | | | embarrassing *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus | 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:004-illness-disability-and-babies.lesson:0`. **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): R5-strong ×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…, 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/3-death-and-feeling-poorly/24/) - next →: [Soft words for hard things: illness, d…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/4-illness-disability-and-babies/1/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/4-illness-disability-and-babies/)