---
title: Male weaver birds weave hanging nests from grass strips, tying knots… — Animal builders: termite mounds, weaver birds an… · tree and pragmatics
description: Male weaver birds weave hanging nests from grass strips, tying knots with beak and feet; nests at the tips of thin branches are hard for snakes and monkeys to reach, and if the female does not like a nest the male pulls it down and starts again. Who acts: Male weaver birds, nests, snakes, female. A 
---

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# Animal builders: termite mounds, weaver birds and other nest makers, sentence 9

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Male weaver birds weave hanging nests from grass strips, tying knots with beak and feet; nests at the tips of thin branches are hard for snakes and monkeys to reach, and if the female does not like a nest the male pulls it down and starts again.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Male weaver birds, nests, snakes, female, male · **What happens:** weave, hang, tie, be, reach, not like · **To what, where:** hanging nests, grass strips, knots, nest

<!-- .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 (Male weaver birds, nests, snakes, female), 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:9
# text = Male weaver birds weave hanging nests from grass strips, tying knots with beak and feet; nests at the tips of thin branches are hard for snakes and monkeys to reach, and if the female does not like a nest the male pulls it down and starts again.
# 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	Male	male	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
2	weaver	weaver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	weave	weave	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	hanging	hang	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	amod	_	_
6	nests	nest	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	strips	strip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	tying	tie	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	advcl	_	_
12	knots	knot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	beak	beak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	conj	_	_
17	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
18	nests	nest	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	nsubj	_	_
19	at	at	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	tips	tip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	thin	thin	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nmod	_	_
25	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
26	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:conj
27	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	32	mark	_	_
28	snakes	snake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	nsubj	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
30	monkeys	monkey	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	conj	_	_
31	to	to	PART	TO	_	32	mark	_	_
32	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	ccomp	_	_
33	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	40	punct	_	_
34	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	40	cc	_	_
35	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	40	mark	_	_
36	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
37	female	female	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	40	nsubj	_	_
38	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	40	aux	_	_
39	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	40	advmod	_	_
40	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	advcl	_	_
41	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	42	det	_	_
42	nest	nest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	40	obj	_	_
43	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	44	det	_	_
44	male	male	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	45	nsubj	_	_
45	pulls	pull	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	40	conj	_	_
46	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	45	obj	_	_
47	down	down	ADP	RP	_	45	compound:prt	_	_
48	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	49	cc	_	_
49	starts	start	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	45	conj	_	_
50	again	again	ADV	RB	_	49	advmod	_	_
51	.	.	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 | **weave** | present | Male weaver birds | hanging nests |  | grass strips |  |  | vn build-26.1 «NP V NP.product PP.material»: agent=Agent nest=Product from strip=Material |
| 2 | **hang** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tie** | gerund | Male weaver birds *not said here* | knots |  |  |  | with beak and feet | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent knot=Patient with beak=Co-Patient |
| 4 | **is** | present | nests at the tips of thin branches |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **reach** | to-infinitive | snakes and monkeys |  |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **not** **like** *a condition, not said to happen* | present · do-support | the female | a nest |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot nest=Theme |
| 7 | **pull down** | present | the male | nest |  |  |  |  | vn push-12-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 8 | **start** | present | the male *not said here* |  |  |  | again |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

<!-- .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: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): 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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