--- title: A newborn calf can't control its trunk yet; it practises for months,… — Elephants: the trunk and everything it does · tree and pragmatics description: A newborn calf can't control its trunk yet; it practises for months, sometimes sucking it like a thumb, and until then it kneels to drink with its mouth. Who acts: newborn calf, calf. A sentence of the lesson «Elephants: the trunk and everything it does» of the biology course of Mova's primary schoo --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/14/) [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/) / [Elephants: the trunk and everything it…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/) / 14 # Elephants: the trunk and everything it does, sentence 14 A newborn calf can't control its trunk yet; it practises for months, sometimes sucking it like a thumb, and until then it kneels to drink with its mouth. **Who acts:** newborn calf, calf · **What happens:** not control, practise, suck, kneel, drink · **To what, where:** trunk, calf This is a sentence of the lesson «Elephants: the trunk and everything it does» 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 (newborn calf, calf), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:021-elephants-the-trunk.lesson:14 # text = A newborn calf can't control its trunk yet; it practises for months, sometimes sucking it like a thumb, and until then it kneels to drink with its mouth. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 021-elephants-the-trunk.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): R7-rel-agree ×2 1 A a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 3 det _ _ 2 newborn newborn ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 amod _ _ 3 calf calf NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 nsubj _ _ 4 ca can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 6 aux _ _ 5 n't not PART RB Polarity=Neg 6 advmod _ _ 6 control control VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 7 its its PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 8 nmod:poss _ _ 8 trunk trunk NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 obj _ _ 9 yet yet ADV RB _ 6 advmod _ _ 10 ; ; PUNCT : _ 12 punct _ _ 11 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 12 nsubj _ _ 12 practises practise VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 6 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=6:conj 13 for for ADP IN _ 14 case _ _ 14 months month NOUN NNS Number=Plur 12 obl _ _ 15 , , PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ _ 16 sometimes sometimes ADV RB PronType=Ind 17 advmod _ _ 17 sucking suck VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 12 advcl _ _ 18 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 17 obj _ _ 19 like like ADP IN _ 21 case _ _ 20 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 21 det _ _ 21 thumb thumb NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 obl _ _ 22 , , PUNCT , _ 27 punct _ _ 23 and and CCONJ CC _ 27 cc _ _ 24 until until ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 25 then then ADV RB PronType=Dem 27 obl _ _ 26 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 27 nsubj _ _ 27 kneels kneel VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 17 conj _ _ 28 to to PART TO _ 29 mark _ _ 29 drink drink VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 27 advcl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=27:xcomp 30 with with ADP IN _ 32 case _ _ 31 its its PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 32 nmod:poss _ _ 32 mouth mouth NOUN NN Number=Sing 29 obl _ _ 33 . . PUNCT . _ 6 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **not** **control** | can | a newborn calf | calf's trunk | | | yet | | vn enforce-63 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent trunk=Theme | | 2 | **practise** | present | calf | | | | month | | tree rules | | 3 | **suck** | gerund | calf *not said here* | calf | | | | like a thumb; sometimes *property* | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent it=Theme | | 4 | **kneel** | present | calf | | | | | | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 5 | **drink** | to-infinitive | calf *not said here* | | | | | with calf's mouth | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | 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:021-elephants-the-trunk.lesson:14`. **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): 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/). - ← previous: [Elephants: the trunk and everything it…, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/13/) - next →: [Elephants: the trunk and everything it…, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/15/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/)