---
title: Elephants fearing mice is a myth; they are startled by sudden moveme… — The big biology quiz, part 3: dinosaurs, evoluti… · tree and pragmatics
description: Elephants fearing mice is a myth; they are startled by sudden movement and wary of bees, and other myths are wrong too: ostriches do not bury their heads, lemmings do not jump and goldfish remember for months. Who acts: Elephants, sudden movement, other myths, ostriches. A sentence of the lesson «Th
---

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# The big biology quiz, part 3: dinosaurs, evolution, conservation and food, sentence 20

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Elephants fearing mice is a myth; they are startled by sudden movement and wary of bees, and other myths are wrong too: ostriches do not bury their heads, lemmings do not jump and goldfish remember for months.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Elephants, sudden movement, other myths, ostriches, lemmings, goldfish · **What happens:** fear, be, startle, not bury, not jump, remember · **To what, where:** mice, myth, heads

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This is a sentence of the lesson «The big biology quiz, part 3: dinosaurs, evolution, conservation and food» 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 (Elephants, sudden movement, other myths, ostriches), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:300-the-big-biology-quiz-part-3-dinosaurs-evolution-conservation-and-food.lesson:20
# text = Elephants fearing mice is a myth; they are startled by sudden movement and wary of bees, and other myths are wrong too: ostriches do not bury their heads, lemmings do not jump and goldfish remember for months.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 300-the-big-biology-quiz-part-3-dinosaurs-evolution-conservation-and-food.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	Elephants	elephant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
2	fearing	fear	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	1	acl	_	_
3	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	myth	myth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	startled	startle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=6:conj
11	by	by	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	sudden	sudden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	movement	movement	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	wary	wary	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	bees	bee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	_
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	myths	myth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj	_	_
22	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
23	wrong	wrong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
24	too	too	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
25	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	29	punct	_	_
26	ostriches	ostrich	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	nsubj	_	_
27	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
28	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	29	advmod	_	_
29	bury	bury	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
30	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
31	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	obj	_	_
32	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	36	punct	_	_
33	lemmings	lemming	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	36	nsubj	_	_
34	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	36	aux	_	_
35	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	36	advmod	_	_
36	jump	jump	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	29	conj	_	_
37	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
38	goldfish	goldfish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	39	nsubj	_	_
39	remember	remember	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	36	conj	_	_
40	for	for	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
41	months	month	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	39	obl	_	_
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: neg
- teacher: changed act=assert

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fear** | gerund | Elephants *not said here* | mice |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer mouse=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is a** | present | Elephants | a myth |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **startle** | present · passive | sudden movement | mice *= mouse* |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus subject=Experiencer |
| 4 | **is** | present | other myths |  |  |  |  | wrong *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **not** **bury** | present · do-support | ostriches | mice's heads |  |  |  |  | vn put-9.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Theme |
| 6 | **not** **jump** | present · do-support | lemmings |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 7 | **remember** | present | goldfish |  |  |  | month |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: 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.

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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:300-the-big-biology-quiz-part-3-dinosaurs-evolution-conservation-and-food.lesson:20`.

**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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