---
title: Some historians think ancient people who found Protoceratops skulls… — Fossils: how a living thing turns to stone and h… · tree and pragmatics
description: Some historians think ancient people who found Protoceratops skulls in the Gobi Desert imagined griffins, and that mammoth skulls with one big nose hole may have inspired stories of one-eyed giants; this is an idea, not something proven. Who acts: historians, ancient people, mammoth skulls, this. A 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/275-fossils-how-a-living-thing-turns-to-stone-and-how-we-dig-it-up/17/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [Fossils: how a living thing turns to s…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/275-fossils-how-a-living-thing-turns-to-stone-and-how-we-dig-it-up/) / 17

# Fossils: how a living thing turns to stone and how we dig it up, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Some historians think ancient people who found Protoceratops skulls in the Gobi Desert imagined griffins, and that mammoth skulls with one big nose hole may have inspired stories of one-eyed giants; this is an idea, not something proven.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** historians, ancient people, mammoth skulls, this · **What happens:** think, find, imagine, inspire, be, prove · **To what, where:** Protoceratops skulls, Gobi Desert, griffins, stories, idea · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Fossils: how a living thing turns to stone and how we dig it up» 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 (historians, ancient people, mammoth skulls, this), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:275-fossils-how-a-living-thing-turns-to-stone-and-how-we-dig-it-up.lesson:17
# text = Some historians think ancient people who found Protoceratops skulls in the Gobi Desert imagined griffins, and that mammoth skulls with one big nose hole may have inspired stories of one-eyed giants; this is an idea, not something proven.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 275-fossils-how-a-living-thing-turns-to-stone-and-how-we-dig-it-up.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): R2-punct-next ×1, R5-strong ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	Some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	2	det	_	_
2	historians	historian	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	think	think	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	ancient	ancient	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	ccomp	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	Protoceratops	protoceratops	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=9:compound|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing
9	skulls	skull	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	Gobi	Gobi	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	Desert	desert	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
14	imagined	imagine	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
15	griffins	griffin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=14:punct
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=20:det|HaikuPos=DET:DT:Number=Sing|PronType=Dem
19	mammoth	mammoth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	skulls	skull	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	nsubj	_	_
21	with	with	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
22	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	25	nummod	_	_
23	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
24	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	compound	_	_
25	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	_
26	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
27	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	aux	_	_
28	inspired	inspire	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	conj	_	_
29	stories	story	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	obj	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
31	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	34	nummod	_	_
32	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	34	punct	_	_
33	eyed	eye	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	_
34	giants	giant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	nmod	_	_
35	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	39	punct	_	_
36	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	39	nsubj	_	_
37	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	39	cop	_	_
38	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	39	det	_	_
39	idea	idea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	_
40	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	42	punct	_	_
41	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	42	advmod	_	_
42	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	39	conj	_	_
43	proven	prove	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	42	acl	_	_
44	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	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 | **think** *speech: other* | present | some historians |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **find** | past | ancient people | Protoceratops skulls |  | the Gobi Desert |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent skull=Topic |
| 3 | **imagine** | past |  | griffins |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot griffin=Theme |
| 4 | **inspire** | may · perfect | mammoth skulls with one big nose hole | stories of one eyed giants |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus story=Experiencer |
| 5 | **is a** | present | this | a idea |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **prove** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: 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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:275-fossils-how-a-living-thing-turns-to-stone-and-how-we-dig-it-up.lesson:17`.

**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): R2-punct-next ×1, R5-strong ×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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Fossils: how a living thing turns to s…, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/275-fossils-how-a-living-thing-turns-to-stone-and-how-we-dig-it-up/16/)
- next →: [Fossils: how a living thing turns to s…, 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/275-fossils-how-a-living-thing-turns-to-stone-and-how-we-dig-it-up/18/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/275-fossils-how-a-living-thing-turns-to-stone-and-how-we-dig-it-up/)