---
title: Cutting an earthworm in half does not make two worms; sometimes the… — Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and Jerry, ele… · tree and pragmatics
description: Cutting an earthworm in half does not make two worms; sometimes the front part regrows a tail, but the back part usually dies, while some flatworms can regrow from many small pieces. Who acts: Cutting, front part, back part, flatworms. A sentence of the lesson «Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and 
---

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# Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and Jerry, elephants and mice, ostriches and more, sentence 15

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Cutting an earthworm in half does not make two worms; sometimes the front part regrows a tail, but the back part usually dies, while some flatworms can regrow from many small pieces.

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**Who acts:** Cutting, front part, back part, flatworms · **What happens:** cut, not make, regrow, die · **To what, where:** earthworm, half, two worms, tail, many small pieces

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and Jerry, elephants and mice, ostriches and more» 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 (Cutting, front part, back part, flatworms), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right.lesson:15
# text = Cutting an earthworm in half does not make two worms; sometimes the front part regrows a tail, but the back part usually dies, while some flatworms can regrow from many small pieces.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right.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 ×1
1	Cutting	cut	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	csubj	_	_
2	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	earthworm	earthworm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	1	obl	_	_
6	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
10	worms	worm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	16	advmod	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	front	front	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	regrows	regrow	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=8:advcl
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	compound	_	_
23	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
24	usually	usually	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	dies	die	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
27	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
28	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	29	det	_	_
29	flatworms	flatworm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	nsubj	_	_
30	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	31	aux	_	_
31	regrow	regrow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	advcl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=8:conj
32	from	from	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
33	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	35	amod	_	_
34	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	35	amod	_	_
35	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	obl	_	_
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	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 | **cut** | gerund |  | a earthworm |  | half |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset earthworm=Product |
| 2 | **not** **make** | present · do-support | Cutting | two worms |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset worm=Product |
| 3 | **regrow** | present | the front part | a tail |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **die** | present | the back part |  |  |  |  | usually *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 5 | **regrow** | can | some flatworms |  |  | many small pieces |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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:191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right.lesson:15`.

**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 ×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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