---
title: Carbon dating works only for things that lived up to about 50,000 ye… — How old is it? Rock layers, rock clocks, amber a… · tree and pragmatics
description: Carbon dating works only for things that lived up to about 50,000 years ago, such as mammoths and old bones; dinosaurs are far too old for it, so other rock clocks are used. Who acts: Carbon dating, things, dinosaurs. A sentence of the lesson «How old is it? Rock layers, rock clocks, amber and the l
---

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# How old is it? Rock layers, rock clocks, amber and the long story of life, sentence 6

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Carbon dating works only for things that lived up to about 50,000 years ago, such as mammoths and old bones; dinosaurs are far too old for it, so other rock clocks are used.

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**Who acts:** Carbon dating, things, dinosaurs · **What happens:** work, live up, be, use · **To what, where:** other rock clocks

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This is a sentence of the lesson «How old is it? Rock layers, rock clocks, amber and the long story of life» 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 (Carbon dating, things, dinosaurs), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:276-how-old-is-it-rock-layers-rock-clocks-amber-and-the-long-story-of-life.lesson:6
# text = Carbon dating works only for things that lived up to about 50,000 years ago, such as mammoths and old bones; dinosaurs are far too old for it, so other rock clocks are used.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 276-how-old-is-it-rock-layers-rock-clocks-amber-and-the-long-story-of-life.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 ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	Carbon	carbon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	compound	_	_
2	dating	dating	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	works	work	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	only	only	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
8	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
9	up	up	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	about	about	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	50,000	50000	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl:unmarked	_	_
14	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|ExtPos=ADP	18	case	_	_
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	16	fixed	_	_
18	mammoths	mammoth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	bones	bone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	conj	_	_
22	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	27	punct	_	_
23	dinosaurs	dinosaur	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	_
24	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
25	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	26	advmod	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=27:advmod
26	too	too	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	parataxis	_	_
28	for	for	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	obl	_	_
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	36	punct	_	_
31	so	so	ADV	RB	_	36	advmod	_	_
32	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	_
33	rock	rock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	compound	_	_
34	clocks	clock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	36	nsubj:pass	_	_
35	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	36	aux:pass	_	_
36	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	27	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=27:conj
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	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 | **work** | present | Carbon dating |  |  |  |  | for things and mammoths and old bones | vn employment-95.3 «NP V PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent for thing=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **live up** | past | things and mammoths and old bones |  |  |  |  | ago *property* | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | present | dinosaurs |  |  |  |  | for dating; old *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **use** | present · passive |  | other rock clocks |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

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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:276-how-old-is-it-rock-layers-rock-clocks-amber-and-the-long-story-of-life.lesson:6`.

**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 ×1, 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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- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/276-how-old-is-it-rock-layers-rock-clocks-amber-and-the-long-story-of-life/)