--- title: Steelmanning means saying the other person's idea in its strongest,… — Arguing politely and never calling names · tree and pragmatics description: Steelmanning means saying the other person's idea in its strongest, fairest way; strawmanning means making it sound silly so it is easy to knock down. Who acts: strawmanning. A sentence of the lesson «Arguing politely and never calling names» of the politics course of Mova's primary school with its --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/39-arguing-politely-and-never-calling-names/8/) [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/) / [Politics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/) / [Arguing politely and never calling names](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/39-arguing-politely-and-never-calling-names/) / 8 # Arguing politely and never calling names, sentence 8 Steelmanning means saying the other person's idea in its strongest, fairest way; strawmanning means making it sound silly so it is easy to knock down. **Who acts:** strawmanning · **What happens:** steelman, mean, say, make, sound, be · **To what, where:** idea, strongest fairest way · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Arguing politely and never calling names» of the politics 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 (strawmanning), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:politics:039-arguing-politely-and-never-calling-names.lesson:8 # text = Steelmanning means saying the other person's idea in its strongest, fairest way; strawmanning means making it sound silly so it is easy to knock down. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = politics # lesson = 039-arguing-politely-and-never-calling-names.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): R2-punct-next ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 Steelmanning steelman VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 2 nsubj _ _ 2 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 3 saying say VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 2 xcomp _ _ 4 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 5 other other ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 amod _ _ 6 person person NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 nmod:poss _ _ 7 's 's PART POS _ 6 case _ _ 8 idea idea NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 obj _ _ 9 in in ADP IN _ 14 case _ _ 10 its its PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 14 nmod:poss _ _ 11 strongest strong ADJ JJS Degree=Sup 14 amod _ _ 12 , , PUNCT , _ 11 punct _ _ 13 fairest fair ADJ JJS Degree=Sup 14 amod _ _ 14 way way NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 nmod _ _ 15 ; ; PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=2:punct 16 strawmanning strawman NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 nsubj _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=17:nsubj|HaikuPos=VERB:VBG:VerbForm=Ger 17 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 2 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:conj 18 making make VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 17 xcomp _ _ 19 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 20 nsubj _ _ 20 sound sound VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 18 xcomp _ _ 21 silly silly ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 20 xcomp _ _ 22 so so ADV RB _ 25 advmod _ _ 23 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 25 expl _ _ 24 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 25 cop _ _ 25 easy easy ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 21 advcl _ _ 26 to to PART TO _ 27 mark _ _ 27 knock knock VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 25 csubj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=25:xcomp 28 down down ADP RP _ 27 compound:prt _ _ 29 . . 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 | **steelman** | gerund | | | | | | | tree rules | | 2 | **mean** | present | | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *not said to happen* | gerund | | the other person's idea | | idea's strongest fairest way | | | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent idea=Theme in way=Manner | | 4 | **mean** | present | strawmanning | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 5 | **make** *not said to happen* | gerund | strawmanning *not said here* | | | | | | tree rules | | 6 | **sound** *not said to happen* | infinitive | strawmanning *= strawman* | | | | | silly *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus | | 7 | **is** | present | strawmanning *= strawman* *not said here* | | | | | easy *property* | tree rules | | 8 | **knock down** | to-infinitive | | | | | | | vn split-23.2 «NP V apart»: agent=Patient | 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:politics:039-arguing-politely-and-never-calling-names.lesson:8`. **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): R2-punct-next ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2, 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: [Arguing politely and never calling names, 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/39-arguing-politely-and-never-calling-names/7/) - next →: [Arguing politely and never calling names, 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/39-arguing-politely-and-never-calling-names/9/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/39-arguing-politely-and-never-calling-names/)