---
title: Swallows from Britain fly about 10,000 km to South Africa for the wi… — Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight · tree and pragmatics
description: Swallows from Britain fly about 10,000 km to South Africa for the winter, because a British winter has almost no flying insects for them to eat, and South Africa has plenty. Who acts: Swallows, British winter, South Africa. A sentence of the lesson «Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight» of the bi
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/14/)

<!-- 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/) / [Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/) / 14

# Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight, sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Swallows from Britain fly about 10,000 km to South Africa for the winter, because a British winter has almost no flying insects for them to eat, and South Africa has plenty.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Swallows, British winter, South Africa · **What happens:** fly, have, eat · **To what, where:** 10,000 km, South Africa, flying insects, plenty

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight» 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 (Swallows, British winter, South Africa), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:033-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight.lesson:14
# text = Swallows from Britain fly about 10,000 km to South Africa for the winter, because a British winter has almost no flying insects for them to eat, and South Africa has plenty.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 033-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight.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, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	Swallows	swallow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
2	from	from	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	Britain	Britain	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	nmod	_	_
4	fly	fly	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=0:root|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin
5	about	about	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=7:case|HaikuPos=ADP:IN:_
6	10,000	10000	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
7	km	km	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	South	South	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	Africa	Africa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	winter	winter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	British	British	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	winter	winter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
20	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
21	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	23	det	_	_
22	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	23	amod	_	_
23	insects	insect	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
24	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
25	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	acl	_	_
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
30	South	South	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	31	compound	_	_
31	Africa	Africa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	32	nsubj	_	_
32	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	conj	_	_
33	plenty	plenty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obj	_	_
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	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 | **fly** | present | Swallows from Britain | 10,000 km | South Africa |  | winter |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to africa=Result |
| 2 | **have** | present | a British winter | no flying insects |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent insect=Patient |
| 3 | **fly** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **eat** | to-infinitive | Swallows *= swallow* | no flying insects *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **have** | present | South Africa | plenty |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent plenty=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.

<!-- 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:033-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight.lesson:14`.

**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, R8-pos-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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/13/)
- next →: [Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/15/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/)