---
title: Pangolins are mammals covered in scales made of keratin, like your n… — Defences: skunks, porcupines, hedgehogs and armour · tree and pragmatics
description: Pangolins are mammals covered in scales made of keratin, like your nails, and roll up so tight that a lion cannot bite through; they are among the most trafficked mammals because some people wrongly think the scales are medicine. Who acts: Pangolins, lion, nails, people. A sentence of the lesson «De
---

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# Defences: skunks, porcupines, hedgehogs and armour, sentence 9

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Pangolins are mammals covered in scales made of keratin, like your nails, and roll up so tight that a lion cannot bite through; they are among the most trafficked mammals because some people wrongly think the scales are medicine.

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**Who acts:** Pangolins, lion, nails, people, scales · **What happens:** be, cover, make, roll up, not bite, traffic · **To what, where:** mammals, scales, medicine · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Defences: skunks, porcupines, hedgehogs and armour» 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 (Pangolins, lion, nails, people), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:248-defences-skunks-porcupines-hedgehogs-and-armour.lesson:9
# text = Pangolins are mammals covered in scales made of keratin, like your nails, and roll up so tight that a lion cannot bite through; they are among the most trafficked mammals because some people wrongly think the scales are medicine.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 248-defences-skunks-porcupines-hedgehogs-and-armour.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, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	Pangolins	pangolin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
2	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	mammals	mammal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
4	covered	cover	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	scales	scale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
7	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	keratin	keratin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	like	like	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	nails	nail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=7:conj
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	roll	roll	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	up	up	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	so	so	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	tight	tight	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	parataxis	_	_
20	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
23	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
25	bite	bite	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	ccomp	_	_
26	through	through	ADP	IN	_	25	obl	_	_
27	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
28	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	34	nsubj	_	_
29	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	34	cop	_	_
30	among	among	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
32	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	33	advmod	_	_
33	trafficked	traffic	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	34	amod	_	_
34	mammals	mammal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	parataxis	_	_
35	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	39	mark	_	_
36	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	37	det	_	_
37	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	39	nsubj	_	_
38	wrongly	wrongly	ADV	RB	_	39	advmod	_	_
39	think	think	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	34	advcl	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=34:advcl|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:VerbForm=Inf
40	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	41	det	_	_
41	scales	scale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	43	nsubj	_	_
42	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	43	cop	_	_
43	medicine	medicine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	ccomp	_	_
44	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | Pangolins | mammals |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cover** | participle |  | mammals *not said here* |  |  |  | in scales | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent in scale=Theme |
| 3 | **make** | participle |  | scales *not said here* |  |  |  | of keratin; like your nails | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |
| 4 | **roll up** | present | Pangolins *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **not** **bite** | can | a lion |  |  |  |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **traffic** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 7 | **is** | present | nails *= nail* |  |  |  |  | among the trafficked mammals | tree rules |
| 8 | **think** *speech: other* | present | some people |  |  |  |  | wrongly *property* | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 9 | **is a** | present | the scales | medicine |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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:248-defences-skunks-porcupines-hedgehogs-and-armour.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, R8-pos-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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