--- title: A wagging tail does not always mean a happy dog; a stiff, high tail… — Reading a dog's body language · tree and pragmatics description: A wagging tail does not always mean a happy dog; a stiff, high tail that flicks fast can mean the dog is tense and ready to act. Who acts: wagging tail, stiff high tail, dog. A sentence of the lesson «Reading a dog's body language» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school with its dependency --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/21-reading-a-dog/3/) [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/) / [Reading a dog's body language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/21-reading-a-dog/) / 3 # Reading a dog's body language, sentence 3 A wagging tail does not always mean a happy dog; a stiff, high tail that flicks fast can mean the dog is tense and ready to act. **Who acts:** wagging tail, stiff high tail, dog · **What happens:** wag, not mean, flick, mean, be, act · **To what, where:** happy dog · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Reading a dog's body language» 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 (wagging tail, stiff high tail, dog), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:everyday:021-reading-a-dog.lesson:3 # text = A wagging tail does not always mean a happy dog; a stiff, high tail that flicks fast can mean the dog is tense and ready to act. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = everyday # lesson = 021-reading-a-dog.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): R2-punct-next ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1 1 A a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 3 det _ _ 2 wagging wag VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 3 amod _ _ 3 tail tail NOUN NN Number=Sing 7 nsubj _ _ 4 does do AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 7 aux _ _ 5 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 7 advmod _ _ 6 always always ADV RB PronType=Tot 7 advmod _ _ 7 mean mean VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 8 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 10 det _ _ 9 happy happy ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 10 amod _ _ 10 dog dog NOUN NN Number=Sing 7 obj _ _ 11 ; ; PUNCT : _ 21 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=7:punct 12 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 16 det _ _ 13 stiff stiff ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 16 amod _ _ 14 , , PUNCT , _ 16 punct _ _ 15 high high ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 16 amod _ _ 16 tail tail NOUN NN Number=Sing 21 nsubj _ _ 17 that that PRON WDT PronType=Rel 18 nsubj _ _ 18 flicks flick VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 16 acl:relcl _ _ 19 fast fast ADV RB Degree=Pos 18 advmod _ _ 20 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 21 aux _ _ 21 mean mean VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 7 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=7:conj 22 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 23 det _ _ 23 dog dog NOUN NN Number=Sing 25 nsubj _ _ 24 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 25 cop _ _ 25 tense tense ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 21 ccomp _ _ 26 and and CCONJ CC _ 27 cc _ _ 27 ready ready ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 25 conj _ _ 28 to to PART TO _ 29 mark _ _ 29 act act VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 27 xcomp _ _ 30 . . PUNCT . _ 7 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **wag** | gerund | | | | | | | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | | 2 | **not** **mean** | present · do-support | a wagging tail | a happy dog | | | | always *property* | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dog=Topic | | 3 | **flick** | present | a stiff high tail | | | | | fast *property* | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **mean** | can | a stiff high tail | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 5 | **is** | present | the dog | | | | | tense *property* | tree rules | | 6 | **be** | | the dog *not said here* | | | | | | tree rules | | 7 | **act** | to-infinitive | the dog *not said here* | | | | | | vn act-114-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | 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:everyday:021-reading-a-dog.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): R2-punct-next ×1, R7-rel-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/). - ← previous: [Reading a dog's body language, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/21-reading-a-dog/2/) - next →: [Reading a dog's body language, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/21-reading-a-dog/5/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/21-reading-a-dog/)