--- title: A white lie is a small lie told to be nice or to spare someone's fee… — White lies: the ugly jumper and the bad drawing · tree and pragmatics description: A white lie is a small lie told to be nice or to spare someone's feelings; philosophers disagree whether they are harmless. Who acts: white lie, small lie, philosophers. A sentence of the lesson «White lies: the ugly jumper and the bad drawing» of the religion ethics course of Mova's primary school --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/religion-ethics/83-white-lies-the-ugly-jumper-and-the-bad-drawing/6/) [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/) / [Religion ethics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/religion-ethics/) / [White lies: the ugly jumper and the ba…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/religion-ethics/83-white-lies-the-ugly-jumper-and-the-bad-drawing/) / 6 # White lies: the ugly jumper and the bad drawing, sentence 6 A white lie is a small lie told to be nice or to spare someone's feelings; philosophers disagree whether they are harmless. **Who acts:** white lie, small lie, philosophers · **What happens:** be, tell, spare, disagree · **To what, where:** small lie, feelings · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «White lies: the ugly jumper and the bad drawing» of the religion ethics 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 (white lie, small lie, philosophers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:religion-ethics:083-white-lies-the-ugly-jumper-and-the-bad-drawing.lesson:6 # text = A white lie is a small lie told to be nice or to spare someone's feelings; philosophers disagree whether they are harmless. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = religion-ethics # lesson = 083-white-lies-the-ugly-jumper-and-the-bad-drawing.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 A a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 3 det _ _ 2 white white ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 amod _ _ 3 lie lie NOUN NN Number=Sing 7 nsubj _ _ 4 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 7 cop _ _ 5 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 7 det _ _ 6 small small ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 7 amod _ _ 7 lie lie NOUN NN Number=Sing 0 root _ _ 8 told tell VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 7 acl _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=7:acl|HaikuPos=VERB:VBD:Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 9 to to PART TO _ 11 mark _ _ 10 be be AUX VB VerbForm=Inf 11 cop _ _ 11 nice nice ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 xcomp _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=8:advcl 12 or or CCONJ CC _ 14 cc _ _ 13 to to PART TO _ 14 mark _ _ 14 spare spare VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 11 conj _ _ 15 someone someone PRON NN Number=Sing|PronType=Ind 17 nmod:poss _ _ 16 's 's PART POS _ 15 case _ _ 17 feelings feeling NOUN NNS Number=Plur 14 obj _ _ 18 ; ; PUNCT , _ 20 punct _ _ 19 philosophers philosopher NOUN NNS Number=Plur 20 nsubj _ _ 20 disagree disagree VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 7 parataxis _ _ 21 whether whether SCONJ IN _ 24 mark _ _ 22 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 24 nsubj _ _ 23 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 24 cop _ _ 24 harmless harmless ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 20 ccomp _ _ 25 . . PUNCT . _ 7 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed act=assert | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **is a** | present | a white lie | a small lie | | | | | tree rules | | 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | participle | | a small lie *not said here* | | | | | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **is** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a small lie *not said here* | | | | | nice *property* | tree rules | | 4 | **spare** | to-infinitive | a small lie *not said here* | someone's feelings | | | | | vn bill-54.5 «NP V NP NP.asset»: agent=Agent feeling=Asset | | 5 | **disagree** | present | philosophers | | | | | | vn correspond-36.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 6 | **is** | present | philosophers *= philosopher* | | | | | harmless *property* | tree rules | 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:religion-ethics:083-white-lies-the-ugly-jumper-and-the-bad-drawing.lesson:6`. **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: [White lies: the ugly jumper and the ba…, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/religion-ethics/83-white-lies-the-ugly-jumper-and-the-bad-drawing/5/) - next →: [White lies: the ugly jumper and the ba…, 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/religion-ethics/83-white-lies-the-ugly-jumper-and-the-bad-drawing/7/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/religion-ethics/83-white-lies-the-ugly-jumper-and-the-bad-drawing/)