---
title: Mice can have babies from about six weeks old, with litters of about… — Rodents: the biggest group of mammals and their… · tree and pragmatics
description: Mice can have babies from about six weeks old, with litters of about 5 to 10 every few weeks, so numbers explode when food is plentiful; owls, foxes, weasels and cats help keep them down. Who acts: Mice, numbers, food, owls. A sentence of the lesson «Rodents: the biggest group of mammals and their e
---

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# Rodents: the biggest group of mammals and their ever-growing teeth, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Mice can have babies from about six weeks old, with litters of about 5 to 10 every few weeks, so numbers explode when food is plentiful; owls, foxes, weasels and cats help keep them down.

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**Who acts:** Mice, numbers, food, owls · **What happens:** have, explode, be, help, keep down · **To what, where:** babies, old, owls

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Rodents: the biggest group of mammals and their ever-growing teeth» 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 (Mice, numbers, food, owls), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:316-rodents-the-biggest-group-of-mammals-and-their-ever-growing-teeth.lesson:15
# text = Mice can have babies from about six weeks old, with litters of about 5 to 10 every few weeks, so numbers explode when food is plentiful; owls, foxes, weasels and cats help keep them down.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 316-rodents-the-biggest-group-of-mammals-and-their-ever-growing-teeth.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): no change
1	Mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	babies	baby	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	about	about	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
8	weeks	week	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl:unmarked	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	obl	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	litters	litter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
14	about	about	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	5	5	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	20	nummod	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	10	10	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	15	nmod	_	_
18	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	20	det	_	_
19	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	weeks	week	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	so	so	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
23	numbers	number	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nsubj	_	_
24	explode	explode	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
25	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	28	advmod	_	_
26	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj	_	_
27	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
28	plentiful	plentiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	advcl	_	_
29	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	30	punct	_	_
30	owls	owl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	37	nsubj	_	_
31	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
32	foxes	fox	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	conj	_	_
33	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
34	weasels	weasel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	conj	_	_
35	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	36	cc	_	_
36	cats	cat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	conj	_	_
37	help	help	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
38	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	37	xcomp	_	_
39	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	38	obj	_	_
40	down	down	ADP	RP	_	38	compound:prt	_	_
41	.	.	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 | **have** | can | Mice | babies |  | old |  | with litters of every 5 few weeks | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent baby=Patient |
| 2 | **explode** | present | numbers |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | present | food |  |  |  |  | plentiful *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **help** | present | owls and foxes and weasels and cats |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 5 | **keep down** | infinitive | owls and foxes and weasels and cats *not said here* | owls *= owl* |  |  |  |  | vn subjugate-42.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=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:316-rodents-the-biggest-group-of-mammals-and-their-ever-growing-teeth.lesson:15`.

**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): no change. **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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