Evolution: why giraffes really have long necks, sentence 5
In 1809 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck suggested that animals pass on body changes they gained by using them, such as a stretched neck; this is wrong, because stretching does not change the DNA passed on.
Who acts: Jean Baptiste Lamarck, animals, this, stretching, DNA · What happens: suggest, pass, gain, use, stretch, be · To what, where: 1809, body changes, animals, DNA · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of the lesson «Evolution: why giraffes really have long necks» 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 (Jean Baptiste Lamarck, animals, this, stretching), 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 | In | in | ADP | _ | 2 1809 | case |
| 2 | 1809 | 1809 | NUM | NumForm=Digit NumType=Card | 7 suggested | obl |
| 3 | Jean | Jean | PROPN | Number=Sing | 6 Lamarck | flat |
| 4 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 6 Lamarck | punct |
| 5 | Baptiste | Baptiste | PROPN | Number=Sing | 6 Lamarck | flat |
| 6 | Lamarck | Lamarck | PROPN | Number=Sing | 7 suggested | nsubj |
| 7 | suggested | suggest | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 8 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 10 pass | mark |
| 9 | animals | animal | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 pass | nsubj |
| 10 | pass | pass | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 7 suggested | ccomp |
| 11 | on | on | ADP | _ | 13 changes | case |
| 12 | body | body | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 changes | compound |
| 13 | changes | change | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 pass | obl |
| 14 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 gained | nsubj |
| 15 | gained | gain | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 changes | acl:relcl |
| 16 | by | by | SCONJ | _ | 17 using | mark |
| 17 | using | use | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 15 gained | advcl |
| 18 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 17 using | obj |
| 19 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 pass | punct |
| 20 | such | such | ADJ | Degree=Pos ExtPos=ADP | 24 neck | case |
| 21 | as | as | ADP | _ | 20 such | fixed |
| 22 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 24 neck | det |
| 23 | stretched | stretch | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 24 neck | amod |
| 24 | neck | neck | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 changes | nmod |
| 25 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 28 wrong | punct |
| 26 | this | this | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 28 wrong | nsubj |
| 27 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 28 wrong | cop |
| 28 | wrong | wrong | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 suggested | parataxis |
| 29 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 31 stretching | punct |
| 30 | because | because | SCONJ | _ | 34 change | mark |
| 31 | stretching | stretch | NOUN | Number=Sing | 34 change | nsubj |
| 32 | does | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 34 change | aux |
| 33 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 34 change | advmod |
| 34 | change | change | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 28 wrong | advcl |
| 35 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 36 DNA | det |
| 36 | DNA | DNA | NOUN | Number=Sing | 34 change | obj |
| 37 | passed | pass | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 36 DNA | acl |
| 38 | on | on | ADV | _ | 37 passed | advmod |
| 39 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 7 suggested | punct |
Pragmatics
No stored speech act for this sentence.
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | suggest speech: suggest | past | Jean Baptiste Lamarck | 1809 | vn say-37.7-1-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | ||||
| 2 | pass | present | animals | body changes such a stretched neck | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on change=Location | ||||
| 3 | gain | past | animals = animal | body changes such a stretched neck not said here | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent change=Theme | ||||
| 4 | use | gerund | animals = animal not said here | animals = animal | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient | ||||
| 5 | stretch | participle | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient | ||||||
| 6 | is | present | this | wrong property | tree rules | ||||
| 7 | not change | present · do-support | stretching | the DNA | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dna=Patient | ||||
| 8 | pass on | past | the DNA not said here | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
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:278-evolution-why-giraffes-really-have-long-necks.lesson:5.
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): R8-pos-agree ×3. 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/278-evolution-why-giraffes-really-have-long-necks/5/