---
title: Jesus said, "All you need to say is simply 'Yes' or 'No'" (Matthew 5… — Vows, oaths and promises in faith · tree and pragmatics
description: Jesus said, "All you need to say is simply 'Yes' or 'No'" (Matthew 5:34-37), so Quakers never swear oaths: an honest person's plain word should be as good as an oath. Who acts: Jesus, you, Quakers, plain word. A sentence of the lesson «Vows, oaths and promises in faith» of the religion ethics course
---

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# Vows, oaths and promises in faith, sentence 3

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Jesus said, "All you need to say is simply 'Yes' or 'No'" (Matthew 5:34-37), so Quakers never swear oaths: an honest person's plain word should be as good as an oath.

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**Who acts:** Jesus, you, Quakers, plain word, honest person · **What happens:** say, need, not swear, be, word · **To what, where:** oaths · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Vows, oaths and promises in faith» 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 (Jesus, you, Quakers, plain word), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:religion-ethics:088-vows-oaths-and-promises-in-faith.lesson:3
# text = Jesus said, "All you need to say is simply 'Yes' or 'No'" (Matthew 5:34-37), so Quakers never swear oaths: an honest person's plain word should be as good as an oath.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = religion-ethics
# lesson = 088-vows-oaths-and-promises-in-faith.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 ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	Jesus	Jesus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=5:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:":_
5	All	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	2	ccomp	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	need	need	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
11	simply	simply	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
12	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=11:punct
13	Yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	14	discourse	_	_
14	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=18:punct
17	No	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	18	det	_	_
18	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
20	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	21	punct	_	_
21	Matthew	matthew	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
22	5:34-37	5:34-37	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	21	flat	_	_
23	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	21	punct	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
25	so	so	ADV	RB	_	28	advmod	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=28:mark|HaikuPos=SCONJ:IN:_
26	Quakers	quaker	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	nsubj	_	_
27	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	28	advmod	_	_
28	swear	swear	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
29	oaths	oath	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	obj	_	_
30	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	36	punct	_	_
31	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
32	honest	honest	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	33	amod	_	_
33	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	nmod:poss	_	_
34	's	's	PART	POS	_	33	case	_	_
35	plain	plain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
36	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	40	nsubj	_	_
37	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	40	aux	_	_
38	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	40	cop	_	_
39	as	as	ADV	RB	_	40	advmod	_	_
40	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	conj	_	_
41	as	as	ADP	IN	_	43	case	_	_
42	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	43	det	_	_
43	oath	oath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	40	obl	_	_
44	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Jesus |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **need** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **swear** | present | Quakers | oaths |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5 «NP V NP to be NP»: agent=Agent oath=Eventuality |
| 5 | **is** | should | a honest person's plain word |  |  |  |  | as a oath; good *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **word** |  | a honest person |  |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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.

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**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:088-vows-oaths-and-promises-in-faith.lesson:3`.

**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 ×2, 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/).

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