---
title: Some old fool's-errand jokes, like «tartan paint», are a harmless tr… — Cruel pranks and where the line is · tree and pragmatics
description: Some old fool's-errand jokes, like «tartan paint», are a harmless tradition when the person laughs in the end. Who acts: old fool's errand jokes, person. 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 pra
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is/41/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [Cruel pranks and where the line is](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is/) / 41

# Cruel pranks and where the line is, sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Some old fool's-errand jokes, like «tartan paint», are a harmless tradition when the person laughs in the end.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old fool's errand jokes, person · **What happens:** be, laugh · **To what, where:** harmless tradition

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (old fool's errand jokes, person), 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:41
# text = Some old fool's-errand jokes, like «tartan paint», are a harmless tradition when the person laughs in the end.
# 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): R7-rel-agree ×1
1	Some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	6	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
3	fool's	fool'	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	compound	_	_
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	_
5	errand	errand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	jokes	joke	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	like	like	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	«	«	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	_
10	tartan	tartan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=11:amod|HaikuPos=ADJ:JJ:Degree=Pos
11	paint	paint	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
12	»	»	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
14	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	harmless	harmless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	tradition	tradition	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
18	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	21	mark	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	laughs	laugh	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	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** | present | some old fool's errand jokes like tartan paint | a harmless tradition |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **laugh** | present | the person |  |  |  | in the end |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in end=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:41`.

**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): 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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Cruel pranks and where the line is, 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is/40/)
- next →: [Cruel pranks and where the line is, 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is/42/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/439-cruel-pranks-and-where-the-line-is/)