How old is it? Rock layers, rock clocks, amber and the long story of life, sentence 1

To get real numbers, scientists use rock clocks: some rocks, especially volcanic ash, hold atoms that slowly turn into other atoms at a steady speed, and measuring how much has changed tells the age, like reading how far a candle has burnt down.

Who acts: scientists, rocks, atoms, candle · What happens: get, use, hold, turn, measure, change · To what, where: real numbers, rock clocks, atoms, other atoms, age · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of the lesson «How old is it? Rock layers, rock clocks, amber and the long story of life» of the biology 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 (scientists, rocks, atoms, candle), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 get	mark
2	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 use	advcl
3	real	real	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 numbers	amod
4	numbers	number	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 get	obj
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 use	punct
6	scientists	scientist	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 use	nsubj
7	use	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	rock	rock	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 clocks	compound
9	clocks	clock	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 use	obj
10	:	:	PUNCT	_	12 rocks	punct
11	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	12 rocks	det
12	rocks	rock	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 clocks	conj
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 ash	punct
14	especially	especially	ADV	_	16 ash	advmod
15	volcanic	volcanic	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 ash	amod
16	ash	ash	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 rocks	appos
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 atoms	punct
18	hold	hold	VERB	Mood=Ind Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	12 rocks	acl
19	atoms	atom	NOUN	Number=Plur	18 hold	obj
20	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	22 turn	nsubj
21	slowly	slowly	ADV	_	22 turn	advmod
22	turn	turn	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	19 atoms	acl:relcl
23	into	into	ADP	_	25 atoms	case
24	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 atoms	amod
25	atoms	atom	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 turn	obl
26	at	at	ADP	_	29 speed	case
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	29 speed	det
28	steady	steady	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 speed	amod
29	speed	speed	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 turn	obl
30	,	,	PUNCT	_	32 measuring	punct
31	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 tells	cc
32	measuring	measure	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	37 tells	nsubj
33	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	34 much	advmod
34	much	much	ADV	Degree=Pos	36 changed	advmod
35	has	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	36 changed	aux
36	changed	change	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	32 measuring	ccomp
37	tells	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 use	parataxis
38	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	39 age	det
39	age	age	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 tells	obj
40	,	,	PUNCT	_	42 reading	punct
41	like	like	SCONJ	_	42 reading	mark
42	reading	read	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	37 tells	advcl
43	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	44 far	advmod
44	far	far	ADV	Degree=Pos	48 burnt	advmod
45	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	46 candle	det
46	candle	candle	NOUN	Number=Sing	48 burnt	nsubj
47	has	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	48 burnt	aux
48	burnt	burnt	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	42 reading	ccomp
49	down	down	ADP	_	48 burnt	compound:prt
50	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 use	punct

Pragmatics

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

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	get	to-infinitive	scientists not said here	real numbers			vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer number=Stimulus
2	use	present	scientists	rock clocks and some rocks			vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent clock=Patient
3	hold	present	some rocks not said here	atoms			vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent atom=Theme
4	turn	present	atoms		other atoms	at a steady speed; slowly property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V PP.source PP.trajectory PP.destination»: agent=Theme into atom=Source at speed=Trajectory
5	measure	gerund					tree rules
6	change	present · perfect					vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
7	tell speech: assert	present		the age			vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent age=Recipient
8	read	gerund					vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
9	burnt down	present · perfect	a candle			far 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, 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:biology:276-how-old-is-it-rock-layers-rock-clocks-amber-and-the-long-story-of-life.lesson:1.

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 ×1, R7-rel-agree ×4. 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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/276-how-old-is-it-rock-layers-rock-clocks-amber-and-the-long-story-of-life/1/