---
title: Male ring-tailed lemurs have «stink fights», rubbing their tails on… — Madagascar: real lemurs, the aye-aye and the fossa · tree and pragmatics
description: Male ring-tailed lemurs have «stink fights», rubbing their tails on smelly wrist glands and waving them at rivals; the tail is longer than the body and cannot grab; it is used for balance and signalling. Who acts: Male tailed lemurs, tail. A sentence of the lesson «Madagascar: real lemurs, the aye-a
---

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# Madagascar: real lemurs, the aye-aye and the fossa, sentence 8

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Male ring-tailed lemurs have «stink fights», rubbing their tails on smelly wrist glands and waving them at rivals; the tail is longer than the body and cannot grab; it is used for balance and signalling.

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**Who acts:** Male tailed lemurs, tail · **What happens:** tail, have, stink, rub, wave, be · **To what, where:** fights, tails, smelly wrist glands, lemurs, rivals, fur

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Madagascar: real lemurs, the aye-aye and the fossa» 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 (Male tailed lemurs, tail), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:127-madagascar-real-lemurs.lesson:8
# text = Male ring-tailed lemurs have «stink fights», rubbing their tails on smelly wrist glands and waving them at rivals; the tail is longer than the body and cannot grab; it is used for balance and signalling.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 127-madagascar-real-lemurs.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): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	Male	male	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
2	ring	ring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	_
4	tailed	tail	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	amod	_	_
5	lemurs	lemur	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	«	«	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	_
8	stink	stink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	fights	fight	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
10	»	»	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=8:punct
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	rubbing	rub	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
13	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	tails	tail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	smelly	smelly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	wrist	wrist	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	glands	gland	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=14:nmod
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	waving	wave	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	conj	_	_
21	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	rivals	rival	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	_
24	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	31	punct	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj	_	_
27	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
28	longer	long	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	6	parataxis	_	_
29	than	than	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	_
32	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
33	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	35	aux	_	_
34	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	35	advmod	_	_
35	grab	grab	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	conj	_	_
36	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	39	punct	_	_
37	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	39	nsubj:pass	_	_
38	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	39	aux:pass	_	_
39	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=6:conj
40	for	for	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
41	balance	balance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	obl	_	_
42	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	43	cc	_	_
43	signalling	signalling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	41	conj	_	_
44	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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No stored speech act for this sentence.

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tail** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **have** | present | Male tailed lemurs |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **stink** *in a quote* | infinitive | Male tailed lemurs *not said here* | fights |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **rub** | gerund | Male tailed lemurs *not said here* | lemurs's tails |  | smelly wrist glands |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent tail=Theme on gland=Destination |
| 5 | **wave** | gerund | Male tailed lemurs *not said here* | lemurs *= lemur* |  | rivals |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient |
| 6 | **is** | present | the tail |  |  |  |  | than the body; long *property* | tree rules |
| 7 | **not** **grab** | can | the tail *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn steal-10.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 8 | **use** | present · passive |  | fur |  |  |  | for balance and signalling | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP PP.predicate»: subject=Theme for balance=Eventuality |

<!-- .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:127-madagascar-real-lemurs.lesson:8`.

**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, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-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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