---
title: If the same person is always the target, it is picking on them, even… — Cruel pranks and where the line is · tree and pragmatics
description: If the same person is always the target, it is picking on them, even if they laugh along. Who acts: same person, target, feelings. 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 38

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If the same person is always the target, it is picking on them, even if they laugh along.

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**Who acts:** same person, target, feelings · **What happens:** be, pick, laugh · **To what, where:** target

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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 (same person, target, feelings), 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:38
# text = If the same person is always the target, it is picking on them, even if they laugh along.
# 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	_	8	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	8	advmod	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	target	target	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	advcl	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	picking	pick	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
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	laugh	laugh	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
20	along	along	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | the same person | the target |  |  |  | always *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **pick** | present · progressive | target |  |  |  |  | on feelings *= feeling* | vn chew-39.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent on they=Patient |
| 3 | **laugh** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | feelings *= feeling* |  |  |  |  | along *property* | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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:439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is.lesson:38`.

**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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- next →: [Cruel pranks and where the line is, 39](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is/39/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is/)