--- title: Understatement means describing something as smaller, milder or less… — A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement · tree and pragmatics description: Understatement means describing something as smaller, milder or less important than it really is, often to sound calm, polite or funny. Who acts: Understatement. A sentence of the lesson «A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its depe --- [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/7/) [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/) / 7 # A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement, sentence 7 Understatement means describing something as smaller, milder or less important than it really is, often to sound calm, polite or funny. **Who acts:** Understatement · **What happens:** mean, describe, sound · **To what, where:** something 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 (Understatement), 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:7 # text = Understatement means describing something as smaller, milder or less important than it really is, often to sound calm, polite or funny. # 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 ×3, R7-rel-agree ×3 1 Understatement understatement NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 nsubj _ _ 2 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 3 describing describe VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 2 xcomp _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:ccomp 4 something something PRON NN Number=Sing|PronType=Ind 3 obj _ _ 5 as as ADP IN _ 6 case _ _ 6 smaller small ADJ JJR Degree=Cmp 3 obl _ _ 7 , , PUNCT , _ 8 punct _ _ 8 milder mild ADJ JJR Degree=Cmp 6 conj _ _ 9 or or CCONJ CC _ 11 cc _ _ 10 less less ADV RBR Degree=Cmp 11 advmod _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=11:amod|HaikuPos=ADJ:JJR:Degree=Cmp 11 important important ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 conj _ _ 12 than than SCONJ IN _ 15 mark _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=13:case|HaikuPos=ADP:IN:_ 13 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 15 nsubj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=11:obl 14 really really ADV RB _ 15 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=11:advmod 15 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 11 advcl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=11:cop 16 , , PUNCT , _ 19 punct _ _ 17 often often ADV RB _ 19 advmod _ _ 18 to to PART TO _ 19 mark _ _ 19 sound sound VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 2 advcl _ _ 20 calm calm ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 19 xcomp _ _ 21 , , PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 22 polite polite ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 20 conj _ _ 23 or or CCONJ CC _ 24 cc _ _ 24 funny funny ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 20 conj _ _ 25 . . PUNCT . _ 2 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 | Understatement | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 2 | **describe** *not said to happen* | gerund | Understatement *not said here* | something | | | | as smaller | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent something=Theme as small=Attribute | | 3 | **sound** | to-infinitive | Understatement *not said here* | | | | | calm, often *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=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:049-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement.lesson:7`. **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 ×3, 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…, 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/6/) - next →: [A bit nippy and not ideal: British und…, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/10/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/)