--- title: When badly frightened, an opossum may play dead: it falls over, stay… — Raccoons, opossums and skunks · tree and pragmatics description: When badly frightened, an opossum may play dead: it falls over, stays still and gives off a bad smell; this is called playing possum. Who acts: opossum. A sentence of the lesson «Raccoons, opossums and skunks» of the biology course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/224-raccoons-opossums-and-skunks/10/) [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/) / [Raccoons, opossums and skunks](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/224-raccoons-opossums-and-skunks/) / 10 # Raccoons, opossums and skunks, sentence 10 When badly frightened, an opossum may play dead: it falls over, stays still and gives off a bad smell; this is called playing possum. **Who acts:** opossum · **What happens:** frighten, play, fall over, stay, give off, call · **To what, where:** bad smell, this, possum · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Raccoons, opossums and skunks» 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 (opossum), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:224-raccoons-opossums-and-skunks.lesson:10 # text = When badly frightened, an opossum may play dead: it falls over, stays still and gives off a bad smell; this is called playing possum. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 224-raccoons-opossums-and-skunks.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, R7-rel-agree ×2 1 When when ADV WRB PronType=Int 3 advmod _ _ 2 badly badly ADV RB Degree=Pos 3 advmod _ _ 3 frightened frighten VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 8 advcl _ _ 4 , , PUNCT , _ 3 punct _ _ 5 an a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 6 opossum opossum NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 nsubj _ _ 7 may may AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 8 aux _ _ 8 play play VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 9 dead dead ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 xcomp _ _ 10 : : PUNCT : _ 12 punct _ _ 11 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 12 nsubj _ _ 12 falls fall VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 8 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=8:conj 13 over over ADV RB _ 12 advmod _ _ 14 , , PUNCT , _ 15 punct _ _ 15 stays stay VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 12 conj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=8:conj 16 still still ADV RB _ 15 advmod _ _ 17 and and CCONJ CC _ 18 cc _ _ 18 gives give VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 15 conj _ _ 19 off off ADP RP _ 18 compound:prt _ _ 20 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 22 det _ _ 21 bad bad ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 22 amod _ _ 22 smell smell NOUN NN Number=Sing 18 obj _ _ 23 ; ; PUNCT : _ 26 punct _ _ 24 this this PRON DT Number=Sing|PronType=Dem 26 nsubj:pass _ _ 25 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 26 aux:pass _ _ 26 called call VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 8 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=8:conj 27 playing play VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 26 xcomp _ _ 28 possum possum NOUN NN Number=Sing 27 obj _ _ 29 . . PUNCT . _ 8 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed act=assert | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **frighten** | participle | a opossum *not said here* | | | | | badly *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer | | 2 | **play** | may | a opossum | | | | | dead *property* | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **fall over** | present | opossum | | | | | over *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 4 | **stay** | present | opossum *not said here* | | | | still | | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 5 | **give off** | present | opossum *not said here* | a bad smell | | | | | vn substance\_emission-43.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Source smell=Theme | | 6 | **call** | present · passive | | this | | | | | tree rules | | 7 | **play** | gerund | | possum | | | | | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent possum=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:224-raccoons-opossums-and-skunks.lesson:10`. **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, 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: [Raccoons, opossums and skunks, 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/224-raccoons-opossums-and-skunks/9/) - next →: [Raccoons, opossums and skunks, 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/224-raccoons-opossums-and-skunks/11/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/224-raccoons-opossums-and-skunks/)