--- title: A giraffe's tongue is about 45 to 50 centimetres long and dark blue-… — The African savanna area: giraffes, zebras, rhin… · tree and pragmatics description: A giraffe's tongue is about 45 to 50 centimetres long and dark blue-black; it pulls leaves off thorny acacias, thick sticky spit protects it from thorns, and the dark colour may help against sunburn. Who acts: tongue, thick sticky spit, dark colour. A sentence of the lesson «The African savanna area --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/5/) [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/) / [The African savanna area: giraffes, ze…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/) / 5 # The African savanna area: giraffes, zebras, rhinos and antelopes, sentence 5 A giraffe's tongue is about 45 to 50 centimetres long and dark blue-black; it pulls leaves off thorny acacias, thick sticky spit protects it from thorns, and the dark colour may help against sunburn. **Who acts:** tongue, thick sticky spit, dark colour · **What happens:** be, pull, protect, help · **To what, where:** leaves, thorny acacias, tongue This is a sentence of the lesson «The African savanna area: giraffes, zebras, rhinos and antelopes» 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 (tongue, thick sticky spit, dark colour), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos.lesson:5 # text = A giraffe's tongue is about 45 to 50 centimetres long and dark blue-black; it pulls leaves off thorny acacias, thick sticky spit protects it from thorns, and the dark colour may help against sunburn. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos.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 A a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 2 det _ _ 2 giraffe giraffe NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 nmod:poss _ _ 3 's 's PART POS _ 2 case _ _ 4 tongue tongue NOUN NN Number=Sing 11 nsubj _ _ 5 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 11 cop _ _ 6 about about ADV RB _ 7 advmod _ _ 7 45 45 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 10 nummod _ _ 8 to to ADP IN _ 9 case _ _ 9 50 50 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 7 nmod _ _ 10 centimetres centimetre NOUN NNS Number=Plur 11 obl:unmarked _ _ 11 long long ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 0 root _ _ 12 and and CCONJ CC _ 16 cc _ _ 13 dark dark ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 16 amod _ _ 14 blue blue ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 16 amod _ _ 15 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 14 punct _ _ 16 black black ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 11 conj _ _ 17 ; ; PUNCT , _ 19 punct _ _ 18 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 19 nsubj _ _ 19 pulls pull VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 11 parataxis _ _ 20 leaves leaf NOUN NNS Number=Plur 19 obj _ _ 21 off off ADP IN _ 23 case _ _ 22 thorny thorny ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 23 amod _ _ 23 acacias acacia NOUN NNS Number=Plur 20 nmod _ _ 24 , , PUNCT , _ 28 punct _ _ 25 thick thick ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 27 amod _ _ 26 sticky sticky ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 27 amod _ _ 27 spit spit NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 nsubj _ _ 28 protects protect VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 19 parataxis _ _ 29 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 28 obj _ _ 30 from from ADP IN _ 31 case _ _ 31 thorns thorn NOUN NNS Number=Plur 28 obl _ _ 32 , , PUNCT , _ 38 punct _ _ 33 and and CCONJ CC _ 38 cc _ _ 34 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 36 det _ _ 35 dark dark ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 36 amod _ _ 36 colour colour NOUN NN Number=Sing 38 nsubj _ _ 37 may may AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 38 aux _ _ 38 help help VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 28 conj _ _ 39 against against ADP IN _ 40 case _ _ 40 sunburn sunburn NOUN NN Number=Sing 38 obl _ _ 41 . . PUNCT . _ 11 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **is** | present | a giraffe's tongue | | | | | 45 centimetres *obl:unmarked*; long *property* | tree rules | | 2 | **be** | | a giraffe's tongue *not said here* | | | | | | tree rules | | 3 | **pull** | present | tongue | leaves | | thorny acacias | | | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent leaf=Theme off acacia=Initial\_Location | | 4 | **protect** | present | thick sticky spit | tongue | | | | from thorns | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent it=Beneficiary from thorn=Theme | | 5 | **help** | may | the dark colour | | | | | against sunburn | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: 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](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:101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos.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): 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/). - ← previous: [The African savanna area: giraffes, ze…, 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/4/) - next →: [The African savanna area: giraffes, ze…, 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/6/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/)