---
title: On its own a virus cannot grow, eat or copy itself, so scientists st… — The microscopic world: viruses and vaccines · tree and pragmatics
description: On its own a virus cannot grow, eat or copy itself, so scientists still argue whether it is alive; it has to get inside a living cell and trick the cell into building copies of the virus. Who acts: virus, scientists. A sentence of the lesson «The microscopic world: viruses and vaccines» of the biolo
---

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# The microscopic world: viruses and vaccines, sentence 1

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On its own a virus cannot grow, eat or copy itself, so scientists still argue whether it is alive; it has to get inside a living cell and trick the cell into building copies of the virus.

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**Who acts:** virus, scientists · **What happens:** not grow, eat, copy, argue, be, have · **To what, where:** own, virus, living cell, cell, building copies · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «The microscopic world: viruses and vaccines» 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 (virus, scientists), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:258-the-microscopic-world-viruses-and-vaccines.lesson:1
# text = On its own a virus cannot grow, eat or copy itself, so scientists still argue whether it is alive; it has to get inside a living cell and trick the cell into building copies of the virus.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 258-the-microscopic-world-viruses-and-vaccines.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 ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
2	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=5:nmod:poss
3	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	obl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=5:amod
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	virus	virus	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	grow	grow	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	eat	eat	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=8:parataxis
11	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	copy	copy	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
13	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	12	obj	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
16	scientists	scientist	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
17	still	still	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	argue	argue	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
19	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
22	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	ccomp	_	_
23	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	xcomp	_	_
28	inside	inside	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
30	living	living	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	compound	_	_
31	cell	cell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	_
32	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
33	trick	trick	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	conj	_	_
34	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	cell	cell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obj	_	_
36	into	into	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	_
37	building	building	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	38	compound	_	_
38	copies	copy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	obl	_	_
39	of	of	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
40	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	41	det	_	_
41	virus	virus	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	38	nmod	_	_
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **grow** | can | a virus | packet's own |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **eat** | infinitive | a virus *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **copy** | infinitive | a virus *not said here* | virus |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent itself=Theme |
| 4 | **argue** *speech: disagree* | present | scientists |  |  |  | still |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is** | present | virus |  |  |  |  | alive *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **have** | present | virus |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 7 | **get** | to-infinitive | virus *not said here* |  |  | a living cell |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 8 | **trick** | infinitive | virus *not said here* | the cell |  |  |  | into building copies of the virus *result* | vn trick-59.2 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent cell=Patient into copy=Result |
| 9 | **copy** |  |  | the virus |  |  |  |  | nom copy «communication transitive»: of=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:258-the-microscopic-world-viruses-and-vaccines.lesson:1`.

**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 ×2, 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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