--- title: Treating a small chance as a sure thing, or a small step as the star… — "Because I said so" and other dead-end reasons · tree and pragmatics description: Treating a small chance as a sure thing, or a small step as the start of a disaster, is called worst-case thinking or the slippery slope. Who acts: Treating. A sentence of the lesson «"Because I said so" and other dead-end reasons» of the world course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tre --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/163-because-i-said-so-dead-end-reasons/18/) [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/) / [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/) / ["Because I said so" and other dead-end…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/163-because-i-said-so-dead-end-reasons/) / 18 # "Because I said so" and other dead-end reasons, sentence 18 Treating a small chance as a sure thing, or a small step as the start of a disaster, is called worst-case thinking or the slippery slope. **Who acts:** Treating · **What happens:** treat, call, start · **To what, where:** small chance, case thinking, disaster · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «"Because I said so" and other dead-end reasons» of the world 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 (Treating), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:world:163-because-i-said-so-dead-end-reasons.lesson:18 # text = Treating a small chance as a sure thing, or a small step as the start of a disaster, is called worst-case thinking or the slippery slope. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = world # lesson = 163-because-i-said-so-dead-end-reasons.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): R5-strong ×2 1 Treating treat VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 22 csubj:pass _ _ 2 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 4 det _ _ 3 small small ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 amod _ _ 4 chance chance NOUN NN Number=Sing 1 obj _ _ 5 as as ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 6 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 8 det _ _ 7 sure sure ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 amod _ _ 8 thing thing NOUN NN Number=Sing 1 obl _ _ 9 , , PUNCT , _ 13 punct _ _ 10 or or CCONJ CC _ 13 cc _ _ 11 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 13 det _ _ 12 small small ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 amod _ _ 13 step step NOUN NN Number=Sing 1 obl _ _ 14 as as ADP IN _ 16 case _ _ 15 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 16 det _ _ 16 start start NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 nmod _ _ 17 of of ADP IN _ 19 case _ _ 18 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 19 det _ _ 19 disaster disaster NOUN NN Number=Sing 16 nmod _ _ 20 , , PUNCT , _ 1 punct _ _ 21 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 22 aux:pass _ _ 22 called call VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 0 root _ _ 23 worst bad ADJ JJS Degree=Sup 25 amod _ _ 24 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 23 punct _ _ 25 case case NOUN NN Number=Sing 26 compound _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=22:obj 26 thinking thinking NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 xcomp _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=25:conj|HaikuPos=VERB:VBG:Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 27 or or CCONJ CC _ 30 cc _ _ 28 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 30 det _ _ 29 slippery slippery ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 30 amod _ _ 30 slope slope NOUN NN Number=Sing 26 conj _ _ 31 . . PUNCT . _ 22 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: narrate - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **treat** | gerund | | a small chance | | | | as a sure thing; a small step as the start of a disaster *obl* | vn characterize-29.2 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent chance=Theme as thing=Attribute | | 2 | **call** *speech: assert* | present · passive | Treating | case thinking or the slippery slope | | | | | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V» | | 3 | **start** | | | a disaster | | | | | nom start «event transitive»: of=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:world:163-because-i-said-so-dead-end-reasons.lesson:18`. **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): R5-strong ×2. **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: ["Because I said so" and other dead-end…, 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/163-because-i-said-so-dead-end-reasons/17/) - next →: ["Because I said so" and other dead-end…, 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/163-because-i-said-so-dead-end-reasons/19/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/163-because-i-said-so-dead-end-reasons/)