---
title: It looks empty and icy, but in spring tiny drifting plants turn the… — The Southern Ocean: blue whales, colossal squid… · tree and pragmatics
description: It looks empty and icy, but in spring tiny drifting plants turn the water green, tiny shrimp-like krill eat them, and the biggest animals that ever lived come to eat the krill. Who acts: It, tiny drifting plants, tiny shrimp like krill, biggest animals. A sentence of the lesson «The Southern Ocean: 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/171-the-southern-ocean-blue-whales-colossal-squid-and-life-under-the-ice/1/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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 Southern Ocean: blue whales, colos…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/171-the-southern-ocean-blue-whales-colossal-squid-and-life-under-the-ice/) / 1

# The Southern Ocean: blue whales, colossal squid and life under the ice, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It looks empty and icy, but in spring tiny drifting plants turn the water green, tiny shrimp-like krill eat them, and the biggest animals that ever lived come to eat the krill.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** It, tiny drifting plants, tiny shrimp like krill, biggest animals · **What happens:** look, drift, turn, eat, live, come · **To what, where:** water, plants, krill

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «The Southern Ocean: blue whales, colossal squid and life under the ice» 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 (It, tiny drifting plants, tiny shrimp like krill, biggest animals), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:171-the-southern-ocean-blue-whales-colossal-squid-and-life-under-the-ice.lesson:1
# text = It looks empty and icy, but in spring tiny drifting plants turn the water green, tiny shrimp-like krill eat them, and the biggest animals that ever lived come to eat the krill.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 171-the-southern-ocean-blue-whales-colossal-squid-and-life-under-the-ice.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, R7-rel-agree ×2
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	looks	look	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	icy	icy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
10	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
11	drifting	drift	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	amod	_	_
12	plants	plant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	turn	turn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	xcomp	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
19	shrimp	shrimp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	_
21	like	like	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	krill	krill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
23	eat	eat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	parataxis	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=2:parataxis|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:VerbForm=Inf
24	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	_
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	biggest	big	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	29	amod	_	_
29	animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	nsubj	_	_
30	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	32	nsubj	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=32:obj
31	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	32	advmod	_	_
32	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	acl:relcl	_	_
33	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
34	to	to	PART	TO	_	35	mark	_	_
35	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	33	xcomp	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=33:advcl
36	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
37	krill	krill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	obj	_	_
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | present | It |  |  |  |  | empty *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **drift** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **turn** | present | tiny drifting plants | the water |  |  | spring | green *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent water=Theme |
| 4 | **eat** | present | tiny shrimp like krill | plants *= plant* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient |
| 5 | **live** | past | the biggest animals |  |  |  | ever |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **come** | infinitive | the biggest animals |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 7 | **eat** | to-infinitive | the biggest animals *not said here* | the krill |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent krill=Patient |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:171-the-southern-ocean-blue-whales-colossal-squid-and-life-under-the-ice.lesson:1`.

**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, R7-rel-agree ×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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Antarctica: emperor huddles, krill, cl…, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/170-antarctica-emperor-huddles-krill-clear-blooded-fish-and-stone-stealing-penguins/15/)
- next →: [The Southern Ocean: blue whales, colos…, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/171-the-southern-ocean-blue-whales-colossal-squid-and-life-under-the-ice/2/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/171-the-southern-ocean-blue-whales-colossal-squid-and-life-under-the-ice/)