---
title: Next door a giant anteater walks on its knuckles to keep its long cl… — The South American area: sloths, anteaters, pira… · tree and pragmatics
description: Next door a giant anteater walks on its knuckles to keep its long claws sharp, then flicks a sticky tongue about 60 centimetres long into a termite feeder up to about 150 times a minute, without a single tooth in its mouth. Who acts: giant anteater. A sentence of the lesson «The South American area:
---

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# The South American area: sloths, anteaters, piranhas and giant otters, sentence 2

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Next door a giant anteater walks on its knuckles to keep its long claws sharp, then flicks a sticky tongue about 60 centimetres long into a termite feeder up to about 150 times a minute, without a single tooth in its mouth.

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**Who acts:** giant anteater · **What happens:** walk, keep, flick · **To what, where:** Next door, knuckles, long claws, sticky tongue, termite feeder

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This is a sentence of the lesson «The South American area: sloths, anteaters, piranhas and giant 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 (giant anteater), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:108-the-south-american-area-sloths-anteaters-piranhas-giant-otters.lesson:2
# text = Next door a giant anteater walks on its knuckles to keep its long claws sharp, then flicks a sticky tongue about 60 centimetres long into a termite feeder up to about 150 times a minute, without a single tooth in its mouth.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 108-the-south-american-area-sloths-anteaters-piranhas-giant-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 ×1
1	Next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	giant	giant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	anteater	anteater	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	walks	walk	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	knuckles	knuckle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
12	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	claws	claw	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
15	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	xcomp	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	18	advmod	_	_
18	flicks	flick	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	sticky	sticky	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
22	about	about	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	60	60	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	24	nummod	_	_
24	centimetres	centimetre	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nmod:unmarked	_	_
25	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
26	into	into	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	termite	termite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	_
29	feeder	feeder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
30	up	up	ADV	RB	_	34	advmod	_	_
31	to	to	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
32	about	about	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
33	150	150	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	34	nummod	_	_
34	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
35	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	minute	minute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	nmod:unmarked	_	_
37	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	41	punct	_	_
38	without	without	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
39	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	41	det	_	_
40	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	41	amod	_	_
41	tooth	tooth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
42	in	in	ADP	IN	_	44	case	_	_
43	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	44	nmod:poss	_	_
44	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	41	nmod	_	_
45	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=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 | **walk** | present | a giant anteater | Next door |  | anteater's knuckles |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on knuckle=Trajectory |
| 2 | **keep** | to-infinitive | a giant anteater *not said here* | anteater's long claws |  |  |  | without a single tooth in anteater's mouth; sharp *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent claw=Theme |
| 3 | **flick** | present | a giant anteater *not said here* | a sticky tongue  60 centimetres |  | a termite feeder | then; time |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent tongue=Theme into feeder=Destination |

<!-- .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.

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**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:108-the-south-american-area-sloths-anteaters-piranhas-giant-otters.lesson:2`.

**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 ×1. **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/).

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