---
title: In experiments, rats opened a cage to free another trapped rat, even… — Rats and mice in the city, and the elephant and… · tree and pragmatics
description: In experiments, rats opened a cage to free another trapped rat, even when they could have eaten chocolate instead. Who acts: rats. A sentence of the lesson «Rats and mice in the city, and the elephant and mouse myth» of the biology course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pra
---

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# Rats and mice in the city, and the elephant and mouse myth, sentence 11

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In experiments, rats opened a cage to free another trapped rat, even when they could have eaten chocolate instead.

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**Who acts:** rats · **What happens:** open, free, trap, eat · **To what, where:** cage, experiments, trapped rat, chocolate

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Rats and mice in the city, and the elephant and mouse myth» 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 (rats), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:222-rats-and-mice-in-the-city-and-the-elephant-and-mouse-myth.lesson:11
# text = In experiments, rats opened a cage to free another trapped rat, even when they could have eaten chocolate instead.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 222-rats-and-mice-in-the-city-and-the-elephant-and-mouse-myth.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	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	experiments	experiment	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	rats	rat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	cage	cage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	free	free	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=7:acl
10	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	12	det	_	_
11	trapped	trap	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	amod	_	_
12	rat	rat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	even	even	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
15	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	19	mark	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	aux	_	_
19	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
20	chocolate	chocolate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
21	instead	instead	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **open** | past | rats | a cage |  | experiments |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent cage=Theme in experiment=Location |
| 2 | **free** | to-infinitive | rats *not said here* | another trapped rat |  |  |  |  | vn free-10.6.3-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Causer rat=Source |
| 3 | **trap** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn trick-59.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **eat** | could · perfect | rats *= rat* | chocolate |  |  |  | instead *property* | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chocolate=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:222-rats-and-mice-in-the-city-and-the-elephant-and-mouse-myth.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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- ← previous: [Rats and mice in the city, and the ele…, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/222-rats-and-mice-in-the-city-and-the-elephant-and-mouse-myth/10/)
- next →: [Rats and mice in the city, and the ele…, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/222-rats-and-mice-in-the-city-and-the-elephant-and-mouse-myth/12/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/222-rats-and-mice-in-the-city-and-the-elephant-and-mouse-myth/)