--- title: In Scots, «dreich» means dull, grey and wet, «wee» means little and… — A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement · tree and pragmatics description: In Scots, «dreich» means dull, grey and wet, «wee» means little and «the day» means today; «a wee bit dreich» in a storm means terrible weather, so the ferry is probably cancelled. Who acts: dreich, wee, day. A sentence of the lesson «A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement» of the languag --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/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/) / [A bit nippy and not ideal: British und…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/) / 14 # A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement, sentence 14 In Scots, «dreich» means dull, grey and wet, «wee» means little and «the day» means today; «a wee bit dreich» in a storm means terrible weather, so the ferry is probably cancelled. **Who acts:** dreich, wee, day · **What happens:** mean, cancel · **To what, where:** terrible weather, ferry This is a sentence of the lesson «A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement» 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 (dreich, wee, day), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:049-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement.lesson:14 # text = In Scots, «dreich» means dull, grey and wet, «wee» means little and «the day» means today; «a wee bit dreich» in a storm means terrible weather, so the ferry is probably cancelled. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 049-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement.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 ×2, R6-punct-agree ×3, R7-rel-agree ×1 1 In in ADP IN _ 2 case _ _ 2 Scots Scot PROPN NNPS Number=Plur 7 obl _ _ 3 , , PUNCT , _ 5 punct _ _ 4 « « PUNCT `` _ 5 punct _ _ 5 dreich dreich NOUN NN Number=Sing 7 nsubj _ _ 6 » » PUNCT '' _ 5 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=7:punct 7 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 8 dull dull ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 7 xcomp _ _ 9 , , PUNCT , _ 10 punct _ _ 10 grey grey ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 conj _ _ 11 and and CCONJ CC _ 12 cc _ _ 12 wet wet ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 conj _ _ 13 , , PUNCT , _ 15 punct _ _ 14 « « PUNCT `` _ 15 punct _ _ 15 wee wee NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 nsubj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=8:conj 16 » » PUNCT '' _ 15 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=17:punct 17 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 7 conj _ _ 18 little little ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 17 xcomp _ _ 19 and and CCONJ CC _ 24 cc _ _ 20 « « PUNCT `` _ 22 punct _ _ 21 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 22 det _ _ 22 day day NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 nsubj _ _ 23 » » PUNCT '' _ 22 punct _ _ 24 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 17 parataxis _ _ 25 today today NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 obl:unmarked _ _ 26 ; ; PUNCT , _ 31 punct _ _ 27 « « PUNCT `` _ 31 punct _ _ 28 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 31 det _ _ 29 wee wee ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 31 amod _ _ 30 bit bit NOUN NN Number=Sing 31 compound _ _ 31 dreich dreich NOUN NN Number=Sing 7 conj _ _ 32 » » PUNCT '' _ 31 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=36:punct 33 in in ADP IN _ 35 case _ _ 34 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 35 det _ _ 35 storm storm NOUN NN Number=Sing 31 nmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=36:obl 36 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 31 advcl _ _ 37 terrible terrible ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 38 amod _ _ 38 weather weather NOUN NN Number=Sing 36 obj _ _ 39 , , PUNCT , _ 45 punct _ _ 40 so so ADV RB _ 45 advmod _ _ 41 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 42 det _ _ 42 ferry ferry NOUN NN Number=Sing 45 nsubj:pass _ _ 43 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 45 aux:pass _ _ 44 probably probably ADV RB _ 45 advmod _ _ 45 cancelled cancel VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 36 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=36:advcl 46 . . PUNCT . _ 7 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **mean** | present | dreich | | | | | in Scots; dull *property* | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Pivot in scot=Attribute | | 2 | **mean** | present | wee | | | | | little *property* | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **mean** | present | the day | | | | today | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **mean** | present | dreich *not said here* | terrible weather | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent weather=Topic | | 5 | **cancel** | present · passive | | the ferry | | | | probably *property* | tree rules | 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:049-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement.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 ×2, R6-punct-agree ×3, 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: [A bit nippy and not ideal: British und…, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/13/) - next →: [A bit nippy and not ideal: British und…, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/16/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/)