---
title: If it is always the same target, it is not a joke — watch for fake l… — Cruel pranks and where the line is · tree and pragmatics
description: If it is always the same target, it is not a joke — watch for fake laughs. Who acts: prank. A sentence of the lesson «Cruel pranks and where the line is» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cruel pranks and where the line is, sentence 24

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If it is always the same target, it is not a joke — watch for fake laughs.

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**Who acts:** prank · **What happens:** be, not be, watch · **To what, where:** same target, joke

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Cruel pranks and where the line is» 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 (prank), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is.lesson:24
# text = If it is always the same target, it is not a joke — watch for fake laughs.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is.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	_	7	mark	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	7	advmod	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	target	target	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	advcl	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	joke	joke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
14	—	—	PUNCT	:	_	15	mark	_	_
15	watch	watch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	parataxis	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	fake	fake	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	laughs	laugh	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	_
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	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 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | prank | the same target |  |  |  | always *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is a** | present | prank | a joke |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **watch** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | for fake laughs | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.theme NP.location»: agent=Agent for laugh=Theme |

<!-- .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:439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is.lesson:24`.

**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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