---
title: The Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote almost 2,000 years ago that o… — Myth check: do ostriches bury their heads in the… · tree and pragmatics
description: The Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote almost 2,000 years ago that ostriches hide their heads in bushes, and the story grew from there. Who acts: Roman writer, ostriches, story. A sentence of the lesson «Myth check: do ostriches bury their heads in the sand?» of the biology course of Mova's primary 
---

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# Myth check: do ostriches bury their heads in the sand?, sentence 16

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The Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote almost 2,000 years ago that ostriches hide their heads in bushes, and the story grew from there.

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**Who acts:** Roman writer, ostriches, story · **What happens:** write, hide, grow · **To what, where:** heads, bushes

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Myth check: do ostriches bury their heads in the sand?» 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 (Roman writer, ostriches, story), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:151-ostriches-and-heads-in-the-sand.lesson:16
# text = The Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote almost 2,000 years ago that ostriches hide their heads in bushes, and the story grew from there.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 151-ostriches-and-heads-in-the-sand.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 ×2
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Roman	roman	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	writer	writer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	Pliny	Pliny	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	Elder	Elder	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	flat	_	_
7	wrote	write	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	2,000	2000	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
10	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl:unmarked	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=7:obl:unmarked
11	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=10:advmod
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	ostriches	ostrich	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
14	hide	hide	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	bushes	bush	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
23	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
24	from	from	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	23	obl	_	_
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	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 | **write** | past | the Roman writer |  |  |  |  | ago *property* | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **hide** | present | ostriches | adults's heads |  | bushes |  |  | vn concealment-16-1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent head=Patient in bush=Location |
| 3 | **grow** | past | the story |  |  |  |  |  | vn grow-26.2.1 «NP.product V PP.patient»: agent=Product from there=Patient |

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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:151-ostriches-and-heads-in-the-sand.lesson:16`.

**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 ×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/).

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