--- title: Litotes (say it LIE-toe-teez) is a special kind of understatement: y… — Not unhappy and not half: litotes · tree and pragmatics description: Litotes (say it LIE-toe-teez) is a special kind of understatement: you say something good by saying «not» plus its opposite. Who acts: Litotes, you. A sentence of the lesson «Not unhappy and not half: litotes» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatic --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/50-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes/0/) [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/) / [Not unhappy and not half: litotes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/50-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes/) / 0 # Not unhappy and not half: litotes, sentence 0 Litotes (say it LIE-toe-teez) is a special kind of understatement: you say something good by saying «not» plus its opposite. **Who acts:** Litotes, you · **What happens:** say, lie, be, not say · **To what, where:** it, toe teez, special kind, something · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Not unhappy and not half: litotes» 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 (Litotes, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:050-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes.lesson:0 # text = Litotes (say it LIE-toe-teez) is a special kind of understatement: you say something good by saying «not» plus its opposite. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 050-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes.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 ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 Litotes litote NOUN NNS Number=Plur 14 nsubj _ _ 2 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 3 punct _ _ 3 say say VERB VB Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin 1 appos _ _ 4 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 3 obj _ _ 5 LIE lie VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 3 xcomp _ _ 6 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 9 punct _ _ 7 toe toe NOUN NN Number=Sing 9 compound _ _ 8 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 7 punct _ _ 9 teez teez NOUN NN Number=Sing 5 obl _ _ 10 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 3 punct _ _ 11 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 14 cop _ _ 12 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 14 det _ _ 13 special special ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 14 amod _ _ 14 kind kind NOUN NN Number=Sing 0 root _ _ 15 of of ADP IN _ 16 case _ _ 16 understatement understatement NOUN NN Number=Sing 14 nmod _ _ 17 : : PUNCT : _ 19 punct _ _ 18 you you PRON PRP Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs 19 nsubj _ _ 19 say say VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 14 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=14:acl:relcl 20 something something PRON NN Number=Sing|PronType=Ind 19 obj _ _ 21 good good ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 20 amod _ _ 22 by by SCONJ IN _ 23 mark _ _ 23 saying say VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 19 advcl _ _ 24 « « PUNCT `` _ 25 punct _ _ 25 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 23 advmod _ _ 26 » » PUNCT '' _ 25 punct _ _ 27 plus plus CCONJ CC _ 29 cc _ _ 28 its its PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 29 nmod:poss _ _ 29 opposite opposite NOUN NN Number=Sing 25 conj _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=25:conj|HaikuPos=ADJ:JJ:Degree=Pos 30 . . PUNCT . _ 14 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: pos - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | infinitive | | it | | | | | tree rules | | 2 | **lie** | infinitive | | toe teez | | | | | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **is a** | present | Litotes | a special kind | | | | of understatement | tree rules | | 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | you | something | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent something=Topic | | 5 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | you *not said here* | | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | 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:050-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes.lesson:0`. **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 ×1, R8-pos-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…, 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/49-a-bit-nippy-and-not-ideal-british-understatement/18/) - next →: [Not unhappy and not half: litotes, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/50-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes/1/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/50-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes/)