---
title: A clue is a reason to ask gentle questions or check another way, not… — Telling when someone may be lying · tree and pragmatics
description: A clue is a reason to ask gentle questions or check another way, not proof. Who acts: clue. A sentence of the lesson «Telling when someone may be lying» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Telling when someone may be lying, sentence 3

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A clue is a reason to ask gentle questions or check another way, not proof.

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**Who acts:** clue · **What happens:** be, ask, check · **To what, where:** reason, gentle questions, way

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Telling when someone may be lying» 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 (clue), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:198-telling-when-someone-may-be-lying.lesson:3
# text = A clue is a reason to ask gentle questions or check another way, not proof.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 198-telling-when-someone-may-be-lying.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	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	clue	clue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl	_	_
8	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	questions	question	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	check	check	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
12	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	13	det	_	_
13	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	proof	proof	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	parataxis	_	_
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | a clue | a reason |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | to-infinitive |  | gentle questions |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent question=Recipient |
| 3 | **check** | infinitive |  | another way |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Theme |

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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:everyday:198-telling-when-someone-may-be-lying.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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