---
title: Too much swearing and promising about a small thing can be a sign of… — Stories that change · tree and pragmatics
description: Too much swearing and promising about a small thing can be a sign of lying; truthful people often simply say «No». Who acts: much swearing, truthful people. A sentence of the lesson «Stories that change» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/449-stories-that-change/43/)

<!-- 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/) / [Stories that change](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/449-stories-that-change/) / 43

# Stories that change, sentence 43

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Too much swearing and promising about a small thing can be a sign of lying; truthful people often simply say «No».

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** much swearing, truthful people · **What happens:** promise, be, say · **To what, where:** sign · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Stories that change» 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 (much swearing, truthful people), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:449-stories-that-change.lesson:43
# text = Too much swearing and promising about a small thing can be a sign of lying; truthful people often simply say «No».
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 449-stories-that-change.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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×2
1	Too	too	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	swearing	swearing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	promising	promise	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
6	about	about	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	cop	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	lying	lying	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=13:nmod|HaikuPos=VERB:VBG:VerbForm=Ger
16	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	truthful	truthful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj	_	_
19	often	often	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
20	simply	simply	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	parataxis	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=13:parataxis|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:VerbForm=Inf
22	«	«	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	_
23	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	21	ccomp	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=21:obj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing
24	»	»	PUNCT	''	_	23	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=21:punct
25	.	.	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 | **promise** *speech: promise* | gerund | much swearing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | about a small thing | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | can | much swearing | a sign |  |  |  | of lying | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | truthful people |  |  |  |  | often, simply *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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:449-stories-that-change.lesson:43`.

**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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×2. **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: [Stories that change, 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/449-stories-that-change/42/)
- next →: [Stories that change, 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/449-stories-that-change/44/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/449-stories-that-change/)