---
title: A coral feels like stone, but it is a city of tiny animals called po… — Coral reef builders: polyps, bleaching, sand fro… · tree and pragmatics
description: A coral feels like stone, but it is a city of tiny animals called polyps, each like a little sea anemone, and each builds a cup of limestone around itself; millions of cups stacked over thousands of years make a reef. Who acts: coral, tiny animals, each. A sentence of the lesson «Coral reef builders
---

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# Coral reef builders: polyps, bleaching, sand from parrotfish and giant clams, sentence 0

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A coral feels like stone, but it is a city of tiny animals called polyps, each like a little sea anemone, and each builds a cup of limestone around itself; millions of cups stacked over thousands of years make a reef.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** coral, tiny animals, each · **What happens:** feel, be, call, build, stack, make · **To what, where:** city, polyps, cup, cups, thousands, millions · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Coral reef builders: polyps, bleaching, sand from parrotfish and giant clams» 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 (coral, tiny animals, each), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:172-coral-reef-builders-polyps-bleaching-sand-from-parrotfish-and-giant-clams.lesson:0
# text = A coral feels like stone, but it is a city of tiny animals called polyps, each like a little sea anemone, and each builds a cup of limestone around itself; millions of cups stacked over thousands of years make a reef.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 172-coral-reef-builders-polyps-bleaching-sand-from-parrotfish-and-giant-clams.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 ×3, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=3:det
2	coral	coral	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	feels	feel	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	like	like	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
15	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=16:acl
16	polyps	polyp	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	xcomp	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=14:appos
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	each	each	PRON	DT	PronType=Tot	16	appos	_	_
19	like	like	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
21	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
22	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	compound	_	_
23	anemone	anemone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
26	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	27	nsubj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=27:nsubj|HaikuPos=PRON:DT:PronType=Tot
27	builds	build	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
28	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	cup	cup	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obj	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	limestone	limestone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nmod	_	_
32	around	around	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
33	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	27	obl	_	_
34	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
35	millions	million	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	43	nsubj:pass	_	_
36	of	of	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
37	cups	cup	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	35	nmod	_	_
38	stacked	stack	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	37	acl	_	_
39	over	over	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
40	thousands	thousand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	38	obl	_	_
41	of	of	ADP	IN	_	42	case	_	_
42	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	40	nmod	_	_
43	make	make	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
44	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	45	det	_	_
45	reef	reef	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	43	obj	_	_
46	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	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 | **feel** | present | a coral |  |  |  |  | like stone | vn conjecture-29.5-2 «NP V S»: agent=Agent like stone=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | present | coral | a city |  |  |  | of tiny animals | tree rules |
| 3 | **call** | participle | tiny animals *not said here* | polyps |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **build** | present | each | a cup of limestone |  |  |  | around coral | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset cup=Product |
| 5 | **stack** | participle |  | cups *not said here* |  | thousands of years |  |  | vn spray-9.7-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent over thousand=Destination |
| 6 | **make** | present · passive |  | millions of cups |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP NP»: subject=Beneficiary reef=Product |

<!-- .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:172-coral-reef-builders-polyps-bleaching-sand-from-parrotfish-and-giant-clams.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 ×3, 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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