---
title: Elephants throw dust and mud over their backs, which protects their… — Elephants: the trunk and everything it does · tree and pragmatics
description: Elephants throw dust and mud over their backs, which protects their sensitive skin from sunburn and biting insects, and the deep wrinkles of their skin hold water and mud that cool them. Who acts: Elephants, backs, deep wrinkles, water. A sentence of the lesson «Elephants: the trunk and everything i
---

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# Elephants: the trunk and everything it does, sentence 9

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Elephants throw dust and mud over their backs, which protects their sensitive skin from sunburn and biting insects, and the deep wrinkles of their skin hold water and mud that cool them.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Elephants, backs, deep wrinkles, water · **What happens:** throw, protect, bite, hold, cool · **To what, where:** dust, backs, sensitive skin, water, trunk

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Elephants, backs, deep wrinkles, water), 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:9
# text = Elephants throw dust and mud over their backs, which protects their sensitive skin from sunburn and biting insects, and the deep wrinkles of their skin hold water and mud that cool them.
# 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): no change
1	Elephants	elephant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	throw	throw	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	dust	dust	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	mud	mud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
6	over	over	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	backs	back	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	protects	protect	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	sensitive	sensitive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	from	from	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	sunburn	sunburn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	biting	bite	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	amod	_	_
19	insects	insect	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	conj	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	deep	deep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	wrinkles	wrinkle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	nsubj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
28	hold	hold	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
29	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obj	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	mud	mud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	conj	_	_
32	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	33	nsubj	_	_
33	cool	cool	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	29	acl:relcl	_	_
34	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	obj	_	_
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **throw** | present | Elephants | dust and mud |  | trunk's backs |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent dust=Theme over back=Destination |
| 2 | **protect** | present | trunk's backs | trunk's sensitive skin |  |  |  | from sunburn and biting insects | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent skin=Beneficiary from sunburn=Theme |
| 3 | **bite** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **hold** | present | the deep wrinkles of trunk's skin | water and mud |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Theme |
| 5 | **cool** | present | water and mud | trunk |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent they=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.

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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:021-elephants-the-trunk.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): no change. **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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