--- title: People play things down to stay calm, to be polite, to avoid soundin… — A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement · tree and pragmatics description: People play things down to stay calm, to be polite, to avoid sounding big-headed, or to make a dry joke when something has gone wrong. Who acts: People, something. A sentence of the lesson «A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its de --- [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/2/) [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/) / 2 # A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement, sentence 2 People play things down to stay calm, to be polite, to avoid sounding big-headed, or to make a dry joke when something has gone wrong. **Who acts:** People, something · **What happens:** play down, stay, be, avoid, sound, make · **To what, where:** things, dry joke 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 (People, something), 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:2 # text = People play things down to stay calm, to be polite, to avoid sounding big-headed, or to make a dry joke when something has gone wrong. # 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): R7-rel-agree ×3 1 People people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 2 nsubj _ _ 2 play play VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 3 things thing NOUN NNS Number=Plur 2 obj _ _ 4 down down ADP RP _ 2 compound:prt _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:advmod|HaikuPos=ADV:RB:_ 5 to to PART TO _ 6 mark _ _ 6 stay stay VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 2 advcl _ _ 7 calm calm ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 xcomp _ _ 8 , , PUNCT , _ 11 punct _ _ 9 to to PART TO _ 11 mark _ _ 10 be be AUX VB VerbForm=Inf 11 cop _ _ 11 polite polite ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 7 conj _ _ 12 , , PUNCT , _ 14 punct _ _ 13 to to PART TO _ 14 mark _ _ 14 avoid avoid VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 2 conj _ _ 15 sounding sound VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 14 xcomp _ _ 16 big big ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 18 amod _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=18:compound 17 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 16 punct _ _ 18 headed head ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 15 xcomp _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=15:conj|HaikuPos=VERB:VBN:Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 19 , , PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 20 or or CCONJ CC _ 22 cc _ _ 21 to to PART TO _ 22 mark _ _ 22 make make VERB VB Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 14 parataxis _ _ 23 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 25 det _ _ 24 dry dry ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 25 amod _ _ 25 joke joke NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 obj _ _ 26 when when ADV WRB PronType=Int 29 advmod _ _ 27 something something PRON NN Number=Sing|PronType=Ind 29 nsubj _ _ 28 has have AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 29 aux _ _ 29 gone go VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part 22 advcl _ _ 30 wrong wrong ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 29 xcomp _ _ 31 . . PUNCT . _ 2 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **play down** | present | People | things | | | | | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Theme | | 2 | **stay** | to-infinitive | People *not said here* | | | | | calm *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 3 | **is** | to-infinitive | People *not said here* | | | | | polite *property* | tree rules | | 4 | **avoid** | to-infinitive | People *not said here* | | | | | | vn avoid-52 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme | | 5 | **sound** | gerund | People *not said here* | | | | | head *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus | | 6 | **make** | to-infinitive | | a dry joke | | | | | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset joke=Product | | 7 | **go** | present · perfect | something | | | | | wrong *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:049-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement.lesson:2`. **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): R7-rel-agree ×3. **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…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/1/) - next →: [A bit nippy and not ideal: British und…, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/3/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/)