--- title: "Let the cat out of the bag" means reveal a secret; the story about… — Idioms taken literally · tree and pragmatics description: "Let the cat out of the bag" means reveal a secret; the story about a cat swapped for a pig at a market has no clear proof. Who acts: story. 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 clause. --- [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/14/) [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/) / 14 # Idioms taken literally, sentence 14 "Let the cat out of the bag" means reveal a secret; the story about a cat swapped for a pig at a market has no clear proof. **Who acts:** story · **What happens:** let out, mean, reveal, swap, have · **To what, where:** cat, secret, market, clear proof · **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 (story), 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:14 # text = "Let the cat out of the bag" means reveal a secret; the story about a cat swapped for a pig at a market has no clear proof. # 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 ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1 1 " " PUNCT `` _ 2 punct _ _ 2 Let let VERB VB Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 10 csubj _ _ 3 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 4 det _ _ 4 cat cat NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 obj _ _ 5 out out ADV RB _ 2 compound:prt _ _ 6 of of ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 7 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 8 det _ _ 8 bag bag NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 obl _ _ 9 " " PUNCT '' _ 2 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=8:punct 10 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 11 reveal reveal VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 10 xcomp _ _ 12 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 13 det _ _ 13 secret secret NOUN NN Number=Sing 11 obj _ _ 14 ; ; PUNCT , _ 16 punct _ _ 15 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 16 det _ _ 16 story story NOUN NN Number=Sing 27 nsubj _ _ 17 about about ADP IN _ 19 case _ _ 18 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 19 det _ _ 19 cat cat NOUN NN Number=Sing 16 nmod _ _ 20 swapped swap VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 19 acl _ _ 21 for for ADP IN _ 23 case _ _ 22 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 23 det _ _ 23 pig pig NOUN NN Number=Sing 20 obl _ _ 24 at at ADP IN _ 26 case _ _ 25 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 26 det _ _ 26 market market NOUN NN Number=Sing 20 obl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=23:nmod 27 has have VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 10 conj _ _ 28 no no DET DT PronType=Neg 30 det _ _ 29 clear clear ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 30 amod _ _ 30 proof proof NOUN NN Number=Sing 27 obj _ _ 31 . . PUNCT . _ 10 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed act=assert | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **let out** *in a quote* | infinitive | | the cat | | | | of the bag | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cat=Theme | | 2 | **mean** | present | | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 3 | **reveal** *not said to happen* | infinitive | | a secret | | | | | vn confess-37.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent secret=Topic | | 4 | **swap** | participle | | a cat *not said here* | | a market | | for a pig | vn substitute-13.6.2 «NP V PP.co-theme»: agent=Theme for pig=Co-Theme | | 5 | **have** | present | the story about a cat | no clear proof | | | | | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent proof=Patient | 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:14`. **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 ×1, 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, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/13/) - next →: [Idioms taken literally, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/15/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/)