--- title: "Hit the nail on the head" means be exactly right; it comes from car… — Idioms taken literally · tree and pragmatics description: "Hit the nail on the head" means be exactly right; it comes from carpentry, where a nail hit exactly goes straight in. Who acts: nail, nail hit. A sentence of the lesson «Idioms taken literally» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/10/) [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/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / [Idioms taken literally](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/) / 10 # Idioms taken literally, sentence 10 "Hit the nail on the head" means be exactly right; it comes from carpentry, where a nail hit exactly goes straight in. **Who acts:** nail, nail hit · **What happens:** hit, mean, be, come, go · **To what, where:** nail, carpentry · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Idioms taken literally» of the language 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 (nail, nail hit), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:025-idioms-taken-literally.lesson:10 # text = "Hit the nail on the head" means be exactly right; it comes from carpentry, where a nail hit exactly goes straight in. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 025-idioms-taken-literally.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): R5-strong ×6, R6-punct-agree ×1 1 " " PUNCT `` _ 2 punct _ _ 2 Hit hit VERB VB Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 9 nsubj _ _ 3 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 4 det _ _ 4 nail nail NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 obj _ _ 5 on on ADP IN _ 7 case _ _ 6 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 7 det _ _ 7 head head NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 obl _ _ 8 " " PUNCT '' _ 2 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=7:punct 9 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 10 be be VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 9 ccomp _ _ 11 exactly exactly ADV RB _ 12 advmod _ _ 12 right right ADV RB _ 10 advmod _ _ 13 ; ; PUNCT , _ 15 punct _ _ 14 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 15 nsubj _ _ 15 comes come VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 9 parataxis _ _ 16 from from ADP IN _ 17 case _ _ 17 carpentry carpentry NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 obl _ _ 18 , , PUNCT , _ 24 punct _ _ 19 where where ADV WRB PronType=Rel 24 advmod _ _ 20 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 22 det _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=21:det 21 nail nail NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 compound _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=24:nsubj 22 hit hit NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 nsubj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=21:acl|HaikuPos=VERB:VBN:Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 23 exactly exactly ADV RB _ 24 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=22:advmod 24 goes go VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 17 acl:relcl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=15:conj 25 straight straight ADV RB _ 26 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=24:advmod 26 in in ADV RB _ 24 advmod _ _ 27 . . PUNCT . _ 9 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **hit** *in a quote* | infinitive | | the nail | | | | on the head | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent nail=Instrument on head=Patient | | 2 | **mean** | present | | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 3 | **be** | infinitive | | | | | | right *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 4 | **come** | present | nail | | | carpentry | | | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from carpentry=Initial\_Location | | 5 | **go** | present | a nail hit | | | | | exactly *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | 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:language:025-idioms-taken-literally.lesson:10`. **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): R5-strong ×6, R6-punct-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: [Idioms taken literally, 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/9/) - next →: [Idioms taken literally, 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/11/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/)