---
title: If a friend is being hurt or hurting themselves, you tell a trusted… — White lies and kind silence · tree and pragmatics
description: If a friend is being hurt or hurting themselves, you tell a trusted adult even if they asked you not to. Who acts: you, things. A sentence of the lesson «White lies and kind silence» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# White lies and kind silence, sentence 25

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If a friend is being hurt or hurting themselves, you tell a trusted adult even if they asked you not to.

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**Who acts:** you, things · **What happens:** hurt, tell, not ask · **To what, where:** friend, things, trusted adult, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «White lies and kind silence» 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 (you, things), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:196-white-lies-and-kind-silence.lesson:25
# text = If a friend is being hurt or hurting themselves, you tell a trusted adult even if they asked you not to.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 196-white-lies-and-kind-silence.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	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
5	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	hurt	hurt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	advcl	_	_
7	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	hurting	hurt	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
9	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	8	obj	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	tell	tell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	trusted	trusted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	adult	adult	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
16	even	even	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
17	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
20	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	iobj	_	_
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	fixed	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	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 | **hurt** *a condition, not said to happen* | present · passive |  | a friend |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-2 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **hurt** | gerund |  | things *= thing* |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer themselves=Patient |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present | you |  | a trusted adult |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent adult=Recipient |
| 4 | **not** **ask** *speech: ask* *a condition, not said to happen* | past | things *= thing* |  | you |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |

<!-- .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:everyday:196-white-lies-and-kind-silence.lesson:25`.

**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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