---
title: Not half!» is old British slang for «yes, very much»; it sounds like… — Not unhappy and not half: litotes · tree and pragmatics
description: Not half!» is old British slang for «yes, very much»; it sounds like a no but means a big yes. Who acts: half. 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 pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[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/15/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / 15

# Not unhappy and not half: litotes, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Not half!» is old British slang for «yes, very much»; it sounds like a no but means a big yes.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** half · **What happens:** be, sound, mean · **To what, where:** old British slang, big yes

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (half), 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:15
# text = Not half!» is old British slang for «yes, very much»; it sounds like a no but means a big yes.
# 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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	Not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
2	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	8	nsubj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=8:nsubj|HaikuPos=ADJ:JJ:Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	»	»	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	British	British	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	slang	slang	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
10	«	«	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=9:punct
11	yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	14	discourse	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	very	very	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	much	much	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
15	»	»	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
16	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	sounds	sound	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
19	like	like	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	no	no	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
22	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	yes	yes	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed act=assert

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | half | old British slang |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sound** *in a quote* | present | half |  |  |  |  | like a no | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **mean** *in a quote* | present | half *not said here* | big yes |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent yes=Topic |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:15`.

**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): R6-punct-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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Not unhappy and not half: litotes, 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/50-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes/14/)
- next →: [Not unhappy and not half: litotes, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/50-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes/16/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/50-not-unhappy-and-not-half-litotes/)