---
title: A rattlesnake's rattle is a stack of loose hollow rings made of the… — Snakes to keep away from: cobras, mambas, vipers… · tree and pragmatics
description: A rattlesnake's rattle is a stack of loose hollow rings made of the same stuff as your fingernails, and it adds a ring each time it sheds, several times a year, so you cannot count the rings to tell its age. Who acts: rattle, you, rattlesnake. A sentence of the lesson «Snakes to keep away from: cobr
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/322-snakes-to-keep-away-from-cobras-mambas-vipers-and-rattlesnakes/13/)

<!-- 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/) / [Snakes to keep away from: cobras, mamb…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/322-snakes-to-keep-away-from-cobras-mambas-vipers-and-rattlesnakes/) / 13

# Snakes to keep away from: cobras, mambas, vipers and rattlesnakes, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A rattlesnake's rattle is a stack of loose hollow rings made of the same stuff as your fingernails, and it adds a ring each time it sheds, several times a year, so you cannot count the rings to tell its age.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** rattle, you, rattlesnake · **What happens:** be, make, add, shed, not count, tell · **To what, where:** stack, loose hollow rings, ring, time, rings, age · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Snakes to keep away from: cobras, mambas, vipers and rattlesnakes» 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 (rattle, you, rattlesnake), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:322-snakes-to-keep-away-from-cobras-mambas-vipers-and-rattlesnakes.lesson:13
# text = A rattlesnake's rattle is a stack of loose hollow rings made of the same stuff as your fingernails, and it adds a ring each time it sheds, several times a year, so you cannot count the rings to tell its age.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 322-snakes-to-keep-away-from-cobras-mambas-vipers-and-rattlesnakes.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	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	rattlesnake	rattlesnake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	_
3	's	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	rattle	rattle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	stack	stack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	loose	loose	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	hollow	hollow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	rings	ring	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	_
12	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	stuff	stuff	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	fingernails	fingernail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	adds	add	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	ring	ring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	27	det	_	_
27	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl:unmarked	_	_
28	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
29	sheds	shed	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	acl:relcl	_	_
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
31	several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl:unmarked	_	_
33	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nmod:unmarked	_	_
35	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	40	punct	_	_
36	so	so	ADV	RB	_	40	advmod	_	_
37	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	40	nsubj	_	_
38	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	40	aux	_	_
39	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	40	advmod	_	_
40	count	count	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	parataxis	_	_
41	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	42	det	_	_
42	rings	ring	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	40	obj	_	_
43	to	to	PART	TO	_	44	mark	_	_
44	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	40	advcl	_	_
45	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	46	nmod:poss	_	_
46	age	age	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	44	obj	_	_
47	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	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 | **is a** | present | a rattlesnake's rattle | a stack |  |  |  | of loose hollow rings | tree rules |
| 2 | **make** | participle |  | loose hollow rings *not said here* |  |  |  | of the same stuff as your fingernails | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |
| 3 | **add** *speech: assert* | present | rattle | a ring |  |  | time |  | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ring=Patient |
| 4 | **shed** | present | rattle | each time *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn substance\_emission-43.4-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location time=Source |
| 5 | **not** **count** | can | you | the rings |  |  |  |  | vn multiply-108 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ring=Theme |
| 6 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | rattle's age |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent age=Recipient |
| 7 | **rattle** |  | a rattlesnake |  |  |  |  |  | nom rattle «event intransitive»: poss=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:322-snakes-to-keep-away-from-cobras-mambas-vipers-and-rattlesnakes.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): 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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Snakes to keep away from: cobras, mamb…, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/322-snakes-to-keep-away-from-cobras-mambas-vipers-and-rattlesnakes/12/)
- next →: [Snakes to keep away from: cobras, mamb…, 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/322-snakes-to-keep-away-from-cobras-mambas-vipers-and-rattlesnakes/14/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/322-snakes-to-keep-away-from-cobras-mambas-vipers-and-rattlesnakes/)