---
title: The Australian malleefowl lays its eggs in a huge heap of leaves and… — Animal builders: termite mounds, weaver birds an… · tree and pragmatics
description: The Australian malleefowl lays its eggs in a huge heap of leaves and sand that warms up as it rots; the father tests the heat with his beak and adds or removes sand, and the chicks dig out alone. Who acts: Australian malleefowl, sand, malleefowl, father. A sentence of the lesson «Animal builders: te
---

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# Animal builders: termite mounds, weaver birds and other nest makers, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Australian malleefowl lays its eggs in a huge heap of leaves and sand that warms up as it rots; the father tests the heat with his beak and adds or removes sand, and the chicks dig out alone.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Australian malleefowl, sand, malleefowl, father, chicks · **What happens:** lay, warm up, rot, test, add, remove · **To what, where:** eggs, huge heap, heat, sand

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Animal builders: termite mounds, weaver birds and other nest makers» 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 (Australian malleefowl, sand, malleefowl, father), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:243-animal-builders-termite-mounds-weaver-birds-and-other-nest-makers.lesson:15
# text = The Australian malleefowl lays its eggs in a huge heap of leaves and sand that warms up as it rots; the father tests the heat with his beak and adds or removes sand, and the chicks dig out alone.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 243-animal-builders-termite-mounds-weaver-birds-and-other-nest-makers.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 ×1
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Australian	Australian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	malleefowl	malleefowl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	lays	lay	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	eggs	egg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	huge	huge	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	heap	heap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	leaves	leaf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
15	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
16	warms	warm	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	_
17	up	up	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	rots	rot	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
21	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
24	tests	test	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:conj
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	heat	heat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
27	with	with	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	beak	beak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	adds	add	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	conj	_	_
32	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
33	removes	remove	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	31	conj	_	_
34	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obj	_	_
35	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	39	punct	_	_
36	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
37	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	38	det	_	_
38	chicks	chick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	39	nsubj	_	_
39	dig	dig	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
40	out	out	ADP	RP	_	39	compound:prt	_	_
41	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	39	advmod	_	_
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- 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 | **lay** | present | the Australian malleefowl | malleefowl's eggs |  | a huge heap of leaves and sand |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent egg=Theme in heap=Destination |
| 2 | **warm up** | present | sand |  |  |  |  |  | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **rot** | present | malleefowl |  |  |  |  |  | vn entity\_specific\_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **test** | present | the father | the heat |  |  |  | with father's beak | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent heat=Theme |
| 5 | **add** *speech: assert* | present | the father *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 6 | **remove** | present | the father *not said here* | sand |  |  |  |  | vn fire-10.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sand=Theme |
| 7 | **dig out** | present | the chicks |  |  |  |  | alone *property* | vn create-26.4-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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:243-animal-builders-termite-mounds-weaver-birds-and-other-nest-makers.lesson:15`.

**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 ×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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