--- title: In theatre "Break a leg!" means "Good luck!"; actors thought saying… — Idioms taken literally · tree and pragmatics description: In theatre "Break a leg!" means "Good luck!"; actors thought saying "good luck" was unlucky, and the exact origin is not known. Who acts: actors, good luck. A sentence of the lesson «Idioms taken literally» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics o --- [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/6/) [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/) / 6 # Idioms taken literally, sentence 6 In theatre "Break a leg!" means "Good luck!"; actors thought saying "good luck" was unlucky, and the exact origin is not known. **Who acts:** actors, good luck · **What happens:** break, mean, think, say, be, not know · **To what, where:** leg, Good luck, exact origin · **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 (actors, good luck), 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:6 # text = In theatre "Break a leg!" means "Good luck!"; actors thought saying "good luck" was unlucky, and the exact origin is not known. # 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): R6-punct-agree ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1 1 In in ADP IN _ 2 case _ _ 2 theatre theatre NOUN NN Number=Sing 9 obl _ _ 3 " " PUNCT `` _ 4 punct _ _ 4 Break break VERB VB Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 2 parataxis _ _ 5 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 6 leg leg NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 obj _ _ 7 ! ! PUNCT . _ 4 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=2:punct 8 " " PUNCT '' _ 4 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=2:punct 9 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 10 " " PUNCT `` _ 12 punct _ _ 11 Good good ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 12 amod _ _ 12 luck luck NOUN NN Number=Sing 9 obj _ _ 13 ! ! PUNCT . _ 12 punct _ _ 14 " " PUNCT '' _ 12 punct _ _ 15 ; ; PUNCT : _ 17 punct _ _ 16 actors actor NOUN NNS Number=Plur 17 nsubj _ _ 17 thought think VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 9 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=9:conj 18 saying say VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 17 advcl _ _ 19 " " PUNCT `` _ 21 punct _ _ 20 good good ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 21 amod _ _ 21 luck luck NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 nsubj _ _ 22 " " PUNCT '' _ 21 punct _ _ 23 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 24 cop _ _ 24 unlucky unlucky ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 18 ccomp _ _ 25 , , PUNCT , _ 32 punct _ _ 26 and and CCONJ CC _ 32 cc _ _ 27 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 29 det _ _ 28 exact exact ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 29 amod _ _ 29 origin origin NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 nsubj:pass _ _ 30 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 32 aux:pass _ _ 31 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 32 advmod _ _ 32 known know VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 17 conj _ _ 33 . . 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 | **break** *in a quote* | infinitive | | a leg | | | | | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer leg=Patient | | 2 | **mean** | present | | Good luck | | | | in theatre | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Pivot luck=Theme in theatre=Attribute | | 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | actors | | | | | | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | actors *not said here* | | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | | 5 | **is** | past | good luck | | | | | unlucky *property* | tree rules | | 6 | **not** **know** | present · passive | | the exact origin | | | | | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: subject=Stimulus | 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:6`. **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 ×2, 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/). - ← previous: [Idioms taken literally, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/5/) - next →: [Idioms taken literally, 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/7/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/25-idioms-taken-literally/)