---
title: Breaking a mirror does not bring seven years of bad luck; that is a… — Chores and broken things · tree and pragmatics
description: Breaking a mirror does not bring seven years of bad luck; that is a superstition, and the only danger is the glass. Who acts: Breaking, that, only danger. A sentence of the lesson «Chores and broken things» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics o
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/111-chores-and-broken-things/17/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [Everyday](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/) / [Chores and broken things](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/111-chores-and-broken-things/) / 17

# Chores and broken things, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Breaking a mirror does not bring seven years of bad luck; that is a superstition, and the only danger is the glass.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Breaking, that, only danger · **What happens:** break, not bring, be · **To what, where:** mirror, superstition, glass

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Chores and broken things» of the everyday 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 (Breaking, that, only danger), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:111-chores-and-broken-things.lesson:17
# text = Breaking a mirror does not bring seven years of bad luck; that is a superstition, and the only danger is the glass.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 111-chores-and-broken-things.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	Breaking	break	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	csubj	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	mirror	mirror	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
4	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	seven	seven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
8	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	luck	luck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
13	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	superstition	superstition	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	parataxis	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	danger	danger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
22	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	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 | **break** | gerund |  | a mirror |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer mirror=Patient |
| 2 | **not** **bring** | present · do-support | Breaking |  |  |  | year |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | present | that | a superstition and the glass |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is a** | present | the only danger | the glass |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:everyday:111-chores-and-broken-things.lesson:17`.

**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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Chores and broken things, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/111-chores-and-broken-things/16/)
- next →: [Chores and broken things, 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/111-chores-and-broken-things/18/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/111-chores-and-broken-things/)