---
title: Answering a different question to dodge the real one is called a red… — The politician's either-or and the straw man · tree and pragmatics
description: Answering a different question to dodge the real one is called a red herring; good interviewers ask the question again. Who acts: good interviewers. A sentence of the lesson «The politician's either-or and the straw man» of the world course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the p
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/178-the-politicians-either-or-and-the-straw-man/14/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [The politician's either-or and the str…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/178-the-politicians-either-or-and-the-straw-man/) / 14

# The politician's either-or and the straw man, sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Answering a different question to dodge the real one is called a red herring; good interviewers ask the question again.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** good interviewers · **What happens:** answer, dodge, call, ask · **To what, where:** different question, real one, red herring, question · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «The politician's either-or and the straw man» 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 (good interviewers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:world:178-the-politicians-either-or-and-the-straw-man.lesson:14
# text = Answering a different question to dodge the real one is called a red herring; good interviewers ask the question again.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = world
# lesson = 178-the-politicians-either-or-and-the-straw-man.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): no change
1	Answering	answer	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	different	different	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	dodge	dodge	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	advcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	herring	herring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	xcomp	_	_
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
16	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	interviewers	interviewer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
18	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	parataxis	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	again	again	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | gerund |  | a different question |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent question=Eventuality |
| 2 | **dodge** | to-infinitive |  | the real one |  |  |  |  | vn avoid-52 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent one=Location |
| 3 | **call** *speech: assert* | present · passive |  | a red herring |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V» |
| 4 | **ask** *speech: ask* | present | good interviewers | the question |  |  | again |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent question=Recipient |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:178-the-politicians-either-or-and-the-straw-man.lesson:14`.

**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): no change. **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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [The politician's either-or and the str…, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/178-the-politicians-either-or-and-the-straw-man/13/)
- next →: [The politician's either-or and the str…, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/178-the-politicians-either-or-and-the-straw-man/15/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/178-the-politicians-either-or-and-the-straw-man/)