---
title: Poachers kill elephants for their tusks, and selling ivory is banned… — Elephants: families, tusks, ears and memory · tree and pragmatics
description: Poachers kill elephants for their tusks, and selling ivory is banned in most countries; where poachers killed many big-tusked elephants, more elephants are now born without tusks, because tuskless ones survived to have young. Who acts: Poachers, selling, tuskless ones. A sentence of the lesson «Elep
---

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# Elephants: families, tusks, ears and memory, sentence 11

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Poachers kill elephants for their tusks, and selling ivory is banned in most countries; where poachers killed many big-tusked elephants, more elephants are now born without tusks, because tuskless ones survived to have young.

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**Who acts:** Poachers, selling, tuskless ones · **What happens:** kill, sell, ban, tusk, bear, survive · **To what, where:** elephants, ivory, most countries, many big tusked elephants, more elephants, young

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Elephants: families, tusks, ears and memory» 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 (Poachers, selling, tuskless ones), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:022-elephants-families-tusks-ears-memory.lesson:11
# text = Poachers kill elephants for their tusks, and selling ivory is banned in most countries; where poachers killed many big-tusked elephants, more elephants are now born without tusks, because tuskless ones survived to have young.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 022-elephants-families-tusks-ears-memory.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	Poachers	poacher	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	kill	kill	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	elephants	elephant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
4	for	for	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	tusks	tusk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	selling	sell	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	csubj:pass	_	_
10	ivory	ivory	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	banned	ban	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	most	most	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	15	amod	_	_
15	countries	country	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
16	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	19	advmod	_	_
18	poachers	poacher	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
19	killed	kill	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	_
20	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
21	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
22	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	21	punct	_	_
23	tusked	tusk	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	24	amod	_	_
24	elephants	elephant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	27	amod	_	_
27	elephants	elephant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	nsubj:pass	_	_
28	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	30	aux:pass	_	_
29	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	30	advmod	_	_
30	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	ccomp	_	_
31	without	without	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	tusks	tusk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	obl	_	_
33	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	37	punct	_	_
34	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	37	mark	_	_
35	tuskless	tuskless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
36	ones	one	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	37	nsubj	_	_
37	survived	survive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	30	advcl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=19:conj
38	to	to	PART	TO	_	39	mark	_	_
39	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	37	xcomp	_	_
40	young	young	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	39	obj	_	_
41	.	.	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 | **kill** | present | Poachers | elephants |  |  |  | for Poachers's tusks | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent elephant=Theme |
| 2 | **sell** | gerund |  | ivory |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ivory=Theme |
| 3 | **ban** | present · passive | selling |  |  | most countries |  |  | vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V S\_ING» |
| 4 | **kill** | past | poachers | many big tusked elephants |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **tusk** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **bear** | present · passive |  | more elephants |  |  | now | without tusks | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 7 | **survive** | past | tuskless ones |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 8 | **have** | to-infinitive | tuskless ones *not said here* | young |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent young=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:022-elephants-families-tusks-ears-memory.lesson:11`.

**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/).

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