--- title: «He's not the brightest» means «he isn't clever»; playing it down ma… — Not unhappy and not half: litotes · tree and pragmatics description: «He's not the brightest» means «he isn't clever»; playing it down makes it sound gentle, but it is still a put-down, so it is not kind to use about classmates. Who acts: Dad, playing, smile, it. A sentence of the lesson «Not unhappy and not half: litotes» of the language course of Mova's primary sch --- [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/10/) [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/) / 10 # Not unhappy and not half: litotes, sentence 10 «He's not the brightest» means «he isn't clever»; playing it down makes it sound gentle, but it is still a put-down, so it is not kind to use about classmates. **Who acts:** Dad, playing, smile, it · **What happens:** not be, mean, play down, make, sound, be · **To what, where:** smile, put · **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 (Dad, playing, smile, it), 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:10 # text = «He's not the brightest» means «he isn't clever»; playing it down makes it sound gentle, but it is still a put-down, so it is not kind to use about classmates. # 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): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×4, R7-rel-agree ×2 1 « « PUNCT `` _ 6 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=8:punct 2 He he PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 6 nsubj _ _ 3 's be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 6 cop _ _ 4 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 6 advmod _ _ 5 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 6 brightest bright ADJ JJS Degree=Sup 8 ccomp _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=8:nsubj 7 » » PUNCT '' _ 6 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=8:punct 8 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 9 « « PUNCT `` _ 13 punct _ _ 10 he he PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 14 nsubj _ _ 11 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 14 cop _ _ 12 n't not PART RB Polarity=Neg 14 advmod _ _ 13 clever clever ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 ccomp _ _ 14 » » PUNCT '' _ 13 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=8:punct 15 ; ; PUNCT , _ 16 punct _ _ 16 playing play VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 19 csubj _ _ 17 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 16 obj _ _ 18 down down ADP RP _ 16 compound:prt _ _ 19 makes make VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 8 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=8:conj 20 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 19 obj _ _ 21 sound sound VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 19 xcomp _ _ 22 gentle gentle ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 21 xcomp _ _ 23 , , PUNCT , _ 31 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=37:punct 24 but but CCONJ CC _ 29 cc _ _ 25 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 29 nsubj _ _ 26 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 29 cop _ _ 27 still still ADV RB _ 29 advmod _ _ 28 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 31 det _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=29:det 29 put put NOUN NN Number=Sing 19 conj _ _ 30 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 31 punct _ _ 31 down down ADV RB _ 29 acl _ _ 32 , , PUNCT , _ 31 punct _ _ 33 so so ADV RB _ 37 advmod _ _ 34 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 37 nsubj _ _ 35 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 37 cop _ _ 36 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 37 advmod _ _ 37 kind kind ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 conj _ _ 38 to to PART TO _ 39 mark _ _ 39 use use VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 37 xcomp _ _ 40 about about ADP IN _ 41 case _ _ 41 classmates classmate NOUN NNS Number=Plur 39 obl _ _ 42 . . PUNCT . _ 8 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: evaluate - voice: narrator - polarity: neg - teacher: changed act=evaluate, polarity=neg | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | present | Dad | | | | | bright *property* | tree rules | | 2 | **mean** | present | | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **play down** | gerund | | smile | | | | | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme | | 4 | **make** | present | playing | smile | | | | | tree rules | | 5 | **sound** | infinitive | smile *not said here* | | | | | gentle *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus | | 6 | **is a** | present | smile | put | | | still | | tree rules | | 7 | **not** **is** | present | it | | | | | kind *property* | tree rules | | 8 | **use** | to-infinitive | | | | | | about classmates | vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: 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:10`. **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 ×1, R6-punct-agree ×4, R7-rel-agree ×2. **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: [Not unhappy and not half: litotes, 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/50-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes/9/) - next →: [Not unhappy and not half: litotes, 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/50-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes/11/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/50-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes/)