--- title: A cat's eyes shine green or yellow in headlights because a mirror la… — Cats: purring, whiskers, night eyes and grooming · tree and pragmatics description: A cat's eyes shine green or yellow in headlights because a mirror layer at the back of the eye bounces light through again, so cats see in about one sixth of the light we need, but not in total darkness. Who acts: eyes, mirror layer, cats, we. A sentence of the lesson «Cats: purring, whiskers, night --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/9/) [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/) / [Cats: purring, whiskers, night eyes an…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/) / 9 # Cats: purring, whiskers, night eyes and grooming, sentence 9 A cat's eyes shine green or yellow in headlights because a mirror layer at the back of the eye bounces light through again, so cats see in about one sixth of the light we need, but not in total darkness. **Who acts:** eyes, mirror layer, cats, we · **What happens:** shine, bounce, see, need · **To what, where:** headlights, light, one sixth This is a sentence of the lesson «Cats: purring, whiskers, night eyes and grooming» 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 (eyes, mirror layer, cats, we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming.lesson:9 # text = A cat's eyes shine green or yellow in headlights because a mirror layer at the back of the eye bounces light through again, so cats see in about one sixth of the light we need, but not in total darkness. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming.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 1 A a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 2 det _ _ 2 cat cat NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 nmod:poss _ _ 3 's 's PART POS _ 2 case _ _ 4 eyes eye NOUN NNS Number=Plur 5 nsubj _ _ 5 shine shine VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 6 green green ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 5 xcomp _ _ 7 or or CCONJ CC _ 8 cc _ _ 8 yellow yellow ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 conj _ _ 9 in in ADP IN _ 10 case _ _ 10 headlights headlight NOUN NNS Number=Plur 5 obl _ _ 11 because because SCONJ IN _ 21 mark _ _ 12 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 14 det _ _ 13 mirror mirror NOUN NN Number=Sing 14 compound _ _ 14 layer layer NOUN NN Number=Sing 21 nsubj _ _ 15 at at ADP IN _ 17 case _ _ 16 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 17 det _ _ 17 back back NOUN NN Number=Sing 14 nmod _ _ 18 of of ADP IN _ 20 case _ _ 19 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 20 det _ _ 20 eye eye NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 nmod _ _ 21 bounces bounce VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 advcl _ _ 22 light light NOUN NN Number=Sing 21 obj _ _ 23 through through ADV RB _ 21 advmod _ _ 24 again again ADV RB _ 21 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=23:nmod 25 , , PUNCT , _ 28 punct _ _ 26 so so ADV RB _ 28 advmod _ _ 27 cats cat NOUN NNS Number=Plur 28 nsubj _ _ 28 see see VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 conj _ _ 29 in in ADP IN _ 32 case _ _ 30 about about ADV RB _ 31 advmod _ _ 31 one one NUM CD NumForm=Word|NumType=Card 32 nummod _ _ 32 sixth sixth NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 obl _ _ 33 of of ADP IN _ 35 case _ _ 34 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 35 det _ _ 35 light light NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 nmod _ _ 36 we we PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs 37 nsubj _ _ 37 need need VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 35 acl:relcl _ _ 38 , , PUNCT , _ 43 punct _ _ 39 but but CCONJ CC _ 43 cc _ _ 40 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 43 advmod _ _ 41 in in ADP IN _ 43 case _ _ 42 total total ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 43 amod _ _ 43 darkness darkness NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 conj _ _ 44 . . PUNCT . _ 5 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **shine** | present | a cat's eyes | | | headlights | | green *property* | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in headlight=Location | | 2 | **bounce** | present | a mirror layer at the back of the eye | light | | | again | through *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent light=Agent | | 3 | **see** | present | cats | | | one sixth of the light but total darkness | | | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer | | 4 | **need** | present | we | the light *not said here* | | | | | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot light=Theme | 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. **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:197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming.lesson:9`. **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. **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/). - ← previous: [Cats: purring, whiskers, night eyes an…, 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/7/) - next →: [Cats: purring, whiskers, night eyes an…, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/10/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/197-cats-purring-whiskers-night-eyes-and-grooming/)