---
title: They have no teeth, so a hen swallows little pebbles that grind food… — Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight · tree and pragmatics
description: They have no teeth, so a hen swallows little pebbles that grind food in a muscly gizzard, and that white splat on the car is not poo at all but the bird's version of wee. Who acts: Birds, hen, little pebbles, white splat. A sentence of the lesson «Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight» of the biol
---

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# Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They have no teeth, so a hen swallows little pebbles that grind food in a muscly gizzard, and that white splat on the car is not poo at all but the bird's version of wee.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Birds, hen, little pebbles, white splat · **What happens:** have, swallow, grind, not be · **To what, where:** teeth, little pebbles, food, muscly gizzard, poo, all

<!-- .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 (Birds, hen, little pebbles, white splat), 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:4
# text = They have no teeth, so a hen swallows little pebbles that grind food in a muscly gizzard, and that white splat on the car is not poo at all but the bird's version of wee.
# 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): R7-rel-agree ×1
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	teeth	tooth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	hen	hen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	swallows	swallow	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	pebbles	pebble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
13	grind	grind	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
14	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	muscly	muscly	ADJ	JJ	_	18	amod	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=18:advmod|HaikuPos=ADV:RB:_
18	gizzard	gizzard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
21	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
22	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	splat	splat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nsubj	_	_
24	on	on	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	car	car	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	_
27	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
28	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	29	advmod	_	_
29	poo	poo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
30	at	at	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	29	nmod	_	_
32	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	36	cc	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	nmod:poss	_	_
35	's	's	PART	POS	_	34	case	_	_
36	version	version	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	conj	_	_
37	of	of	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	_
38	wee	wee	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	nmod	_	_
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	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 | **have** | present | Birds *= bird* | no teeth |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tooth=Patient |
| 2 | **swallow** | present | a hen | little pebbles |  |  |  |  | vn gobble-39.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pebble=Patient |
| 3 | **grind** | present | little pebbles | food |  | a muscly gizzard |  |  | vn carve-21.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent food=Patient |
| 4 | **not** **is a** | present | white splat on the car | poo |  | all |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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:033-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight.lesson:4`.

**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/).

<!-- /div -->

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- ← previous: [Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/3/)
- next →: [Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/5/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/)