---
title: In spring toads walk back to the pond where they hatched, sometimes… — Frogs and toads near home: spawn, croaking choru… · tree and pragmatics
description: In spring toads walk back to the pond where they hatched, sometimes crossing roads; volunteers carry them across in buckets on mild wet nights, and some roads have small toad tunnels. Who acts: toads, volunteers, roads. A sentence of the lesson «Frogs and toads near home: spawn, croaking choruses, t
---

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# Frogs and toads near home: spawn, croaking choruses, toad crossings and the fire-bellied toad, sentence 13

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In spring toads walk back to the pond where they hatched, sometimes crossing roads; volunteers carry them across in buckets on mild wet nights, and some roads have small toad tunnels.

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**Who acts:** toads, volunteers, roads · **What happens:** walk back, hatch, cross, carry, have · **To what, where:** roads, toads, buckets, small toad tunnels

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Frogs and toads near home: spawn, croaking choruses, toad crossings and the fire-bellied toad» 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 (toads, volunteers, roads), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:309-frogs-and-toads-near-home-spawn-croaking-choruses-toad-crossings-and-the-fire-bellied-toad.lesson:13
# text = In spring toads walk back to the pond where they hatched, sometimes crossing roads; volunteers carry them across in buckets on mild wet nights, and some roads have small toad tunnels.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 309-frogs-and-toads-near-home-spawn-croaking-choruses-toad-crossings-and-the-fire-bellied-toad.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): R1-cc-next ×1, R3-conj-first ×1
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	toads	toad	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	walk	walk	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	back	back	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	pond	pond	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	11	advmod	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	hatched	hatch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	14	advmod	_	_
14	crossing	cross	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
15	roads	road	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
16	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	volunteers	volunteer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
18	carry	carry	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	across	across	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	buckets	bucket	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
23	on	on	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
24	mild	mild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
25	wet	wet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	nights	night	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	_
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=18:cc
29	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	30	det	_	_
30	roads	road	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	nsubj	_	_
31	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	Agree=R3-conj-first|Haiku=18:conj
32	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	_
33	toad	toad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	compound	_	_
34	tunnels	tunnel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	obj	_	_
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	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 | **walk back** | present | toads |  |  |  | spring | to the pond *result* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to pond=Result |
| 2 | **hatch** | past | toads *= toad* |  |  |  |  |  | vn grow-26.2.1 «NP.patient V PP.product»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **cross** | gerund | toads *= toad* *not said here* | roads |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent road=Patient |
| 4 | **carry** | present | volunteers | toads *= toad* |  | buckets on mild wet nights |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 5 | **have** | present | some roads | small toad tunnels |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tunnel=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:309-frogs-and-toads-near-home-spawn-croaking-choruses-toad-crossings-and-the-fire-bellied-toad.lesson:13`.

**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): R1-cc-next ×1, R3-conj-first ×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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