--- title: Sea otters float on their backs, crack shells on stones and hold paw… — Sea lions, seals and otters · tree and pragmatics description: Sea otters float on their backs, crack shells on stones and hold paws while they sleep, and by eating sea urchins they keep whole kelp forests alive. Who acts: Sea otters, otters. A sentence of the lesson «Sea lions, seals and otters» of the biology course of Mova's primary school with its dependenc --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/3/) [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/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / [Sea lions, seals and otters](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/) / 3 # Sea lions, seals and otters, sentence 3 Sea otters float on their backs, crack shells on stones and hold paws while they sleep, and by eating sea urchins they keep whole kelp forests alive. **Who acts:** Sea otters, otters · **What happens:** float, crack, hold, sleep, eat, keep · **To what, where:** backs, shells, stones, paws, sea urchins, whole kelp forests This is a sentence of the lesson «Sea lions, seals and otters» 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 (Sea otters, otters), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters.lesson:3 # text = Sea otters float on their backs, crack shells on stones and hold paws while they sleep, and by eating sea urchins they keep whole kelp forests alive. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters.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 1 Sea sea NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 compound _ _ 2 otters otter NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ _ 3 float float VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 on on ADP IN _ 6 case _ _ 5 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 6 nmod:poss _ _ 6 backs back NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 obl _ _ 7 , , PUNCT , _ 8 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=9:punct 8 crack crack VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ _ 9 shells shell NOUN NNS Number=Plur 8 obj _ _ 10 on on ADP IN _ 11 case _ _ 11 stones stone NOUN NNS Number=Plur 8 obl _ _ 12 and and CCONJ CC _ 13 cc _ _ 13 hold hold VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ _ 14 paws paw NOUN NNS Number=Plur 13 obj _ _ 15 while while SCONJ IN _ 17 mark _ _ 16 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 17 nsubj _ _ 17 sleep sleep VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 13 advcl _ _ 18 , , PUNCT , _ 25 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=21:punct 19 and and CCONJ CC _ 25 cc _ _ 20 by by SCONJ IN _ 21 mark _ _ 21 eating eat VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 25 advcl _ _ 22 sea sea NOUN NN Number=Sing 23 compound _ _ 23 urchins urchin NOUN NNS Number=Plur 21 obj _ _ 24 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 25 nsubj _ _ 25 keep keep VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ _ 26 whole whole ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 28 amod _ _ 27 kelp kelp NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 compound _ _ 28 forests forest NOUN NNS Number=Plur 25 obj _ _ 29 alive alive ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 25 xcomp _ _ 30 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **float** | present | Sea otters | | | otters's backs | | | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on back=Trajectory | | 2 | **crack** | present | Sea otters *not said here* | shells | | stones | | | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location shell=Theme | | 3 | **hold** | present | Sea otters *not said here* | paws | | | | | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent paw=Theme | | 4 | **sleep** | present | otters *= otter* | | | | | | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 5 | **eat** | gerund | otters *= otter* *not said here* | sea urchins | | | | | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent urchin=Patient | | 6 | **keep** | present | otters *= otter* | whole kelp forests | | | | alive *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent forest=Theme | 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:biology:100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters.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. **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: [Sea lions, seals and otters, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/2/) - next →: [Sea lions, seals and otters, 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/4/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/)