--- title: "Touch wood" and "jinx" are sayings people use as if words could bri… — Tricks the mind plays: inner voices, superstitio… · tree and pragmatics description: "Touch wood" and "jinx" are sayings people use as if words could bring luck or bad luck; they cannot change what happens. Who acts: Touch wood, people, words. A sentence of the lesson «Tricks the mind plays: inner voices, superstitions and being sure but wrong» of the reflection course of Mova's pri --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/27-tricks-the-mind-plays-inner-voices-superstitions-and-being-sure-but-wrong/17/) [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/) / [Reflection](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/) / [Tricks the mind plays: inner voices, s…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/27-tricks-the-mind-plays-inner-voices-superstitions-and-being-sure-but-wrong/) / 17 # Tricks the mind plays: inner voices, superstitions and being sure but wrong, sentence 17 "Touch wood" and "jinx" are sayings people use as if words could bring luck or bad luck; they cannot change what happens. **Who acts:** Touch wood, people, words · **What happens:** be, use, bring, not change, happen · **To what, where:** sayings, luck This is a sentence of the lesson «Tricks the mind plays: inner voices, superstitions and being sure but wrong» of the reflection 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 (Touch wood, people, words), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:reflection:027-tricks-the-mind-plays-inner-voices-superstitions-and-being-sure-but-wrong.lesson:17 # text = "Touch wood" and "jinx" are sayings people use as if words could bring luck or bad luck; they cannot change what happens. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = reflection # lesson = 027-tricks-the-mind-plays-inner-voices-superstitions-and-being-sure-but-wrong.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 1 " " PUNCT `` _ 3 punct _ _ 2 Touch touch NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 compound _ _ 3 wood wood NOUN NN Number=Sing 10 nsubj _ _ 4 " " PUNCT '' _ 3 punct _ _ 5 and and CCONJ CC _ 7 cc _ _ 6 " " PUNCT `` _ 7 punct _ _ 7 jinx jinx NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 conj _ _ 8 " " PUNCT '' _ 7 punct _ _ 9 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 10 cop _ _ 10 sayings saying NOUN NNS Number=Plur 0 root _ _ 11 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 12 nsubj _ _ 12 use use VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 10 acl:relcl _ _ 13 as as SCONJ IN _ 17 mark _ _ 14 if if SCONJ IN _ 17 mark _ _ 15 words word NOUN NNS Number=Plur 17 nsubj _ _ 16 could could AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 17 aux _ _ 17 bring bring VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 12 advcl _ _ 18 luck luck NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 obj _ _ 19 or or CCONJ CC _ 21 cc _ _ 20 bad bad ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 21 amod _ _ 21 luck luck NOUN NN Number=Sing 18 conj _ _ 22 ; ; PUNCT , _ 26 punct _ _ 23 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 26 nsubj _ _ 24 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 26 aux _ _ 25 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 26 advmod _ _ 26 change change VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 10 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=10:conj 27 what what PRON WP PronType=Int 28 nsubj _ _ 28 happens happen VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 26 ccomp _ _ 29 . . PUNCT . _ 10 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 | **is a** | present | Touch wood and jinx | sayings | | | | | tree rules | | 2 | **use** | present | people | sayings *not said here* | | | | | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent saying=Patient | | 3 | **bring** | could | words | luck or bad luck | | | | | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent luck=Theme | | 4 | **not** **change** | can | People | | | | | | tree rules | | 5 | **happen** | present | | | | | | | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | 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:reflection:027-tricks-the-mind-plays-inner-voices-superstitions-and-being-sure-but-wrong.lesson:17`. **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. **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: [Tricks the mind plays: inner voices, s…, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/27-tricks-the-mind-plays-inner-voices-superstitions-and-being-sure-but-wrong/16/) - next →: [Reading people in hard times: what's r…, 0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/28-reading-people-in-hard-times-whats-really-behind-the-mean-face/0/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/27-tricks-the-mind-plays-inner-voices-superstitions-and-being-sure-but-wrong/)