---
title: Madagascar is a laboratory of the strange: about half of all the wor… — Madagascar: chameleons, leaf-tailed geckos, tenr… · tree and pragmatics
description: Madagascar is a laboratory of the strange: about half of all the world's chameleon kinds, a gecko that is a dead leaf with eyes, a beetle with a neck like a crane, and trees that look planted upside down. Who acts: Madagascar, gecko, trees. A sentence of the lesson «Madagascar: chameleons, leaf-tail
---

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# Madagascar: chameleons, leaf-tailed geckos, tenrecs, baobabs and a moth Darwin predicted, sentence 0

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Madagascar is a laboratory of the strange: about half of all the world's chameleon kinds, a gecko that is a dead leaf with eyes, a beetle with a neck like a crane, and trees that look planted upside down.

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**Who acts:** Madagascar, gecko, trees · **What happens:** be, look, plant down · **To what, where:** laboratory, dead leaf, upside

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Madagascar: chameleons, leaf-tailed geckos, tenrecs, baobabs and a moth Darwin predicted» 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 (Madagascar, gecko, trees), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:164-madagascar-chameleons-geckos-tenrecs-baobabs-and-darwins-moth.lesson:0
# text = Madagascar is a laboratory of the strange: about half of all the world's chameleon kinds, a gecko that is a dead leaf with eyes, a beetle with a neck like a crane, and trees that look planted upside down.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 164-madagascar-chameleons-geckos-tenrecs-baobabs-and-darwins-moth.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, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	Madagascar	Madagascar	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=4:nsubj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	laboratory	laboratory	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=10:det
7	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	nmod	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=10:amod
8	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
9	about	about	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	4	appos	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:nmod
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
12	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	14	det:predet	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	_
15	's	's	PART	POS	_	14	case	_	_
16	chameleon	chameleon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	_
17	kinds	kind	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	gecko	gecko	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
21	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	25	nsubj	_	_
22	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	leaf	leaf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	acl:relcl	_	_
26	with	with	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	_
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	beetle	beetle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
31	with	with	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
32	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nmod	_	_
34	like	like	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	crane	crane	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nmod	_	_
37	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	39	punct	_	_
38	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
39	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	_
40	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	41	nsubj	_	_
41	look	look	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	39	acl:relcl	_	_
42	planted	plant	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	41	xcomp	_	_
43	upside	upside	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	42	obj	_	_
44	down	down	ADV	RB	_	42	advmod	_	_
45	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed polarity=none

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | Madagascar | a laboratory and a beetle with a neck like a crane and trees |  |  |  | the strange *nmod* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | present | a gecko | a dead leaf |  |  |  | with eyes | tree rules |
| 3 | **look** | present | trees |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **plant down** | participle | trees *not said here* | upside |  |  |  | down *property* | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent upside=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:164-madagascar-chameleons-geckos-tenrecs-baobabs-and-darwins-moth.lesson:0`.

**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, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-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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