---
title: Ducklings follow the first moving thing they see after hatching, usu… — The park pond through the year: ducks, coots, sw… · tree and pragmatics
description: Ducklings follow the first moving thing they see after hatching, usually their mother, and can swim and feed within a day; male mallards have green heads, and females are brown to hide on the nest. Who acts: Ducklings, male mallards, females. A sentence of the lesson «The park pond through the year:
---

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# The park pond through the year: ducks, coots, swans, dragonflies and ice, sentence 9

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Ducklings follow the first moving thing they see after hatching, usually their mother, and can swim and feed within a day; male mallards have green heads, and females are brown to hide on the nest.

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**Who acts:** Ducklings, male mallards, females · **What happens:** follow, move, see, hatch, swim, feed · **To what, where:** first moving thing, mother, green heads, nest

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This is a sentence of the lesson «The park pond through the year: ducks, coots, swans, dragonflies and ice» 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 (Ducklings, male mallards, females), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice.lesson:9
# text = Ducklings follow the first moving thing they see after hatching, usually their mother, and can swim and feed within a day; male mallards have green heads, and females are brown to hide on the nest.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice.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 ×2
1	Ducklings	duckling	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	follow	follow	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	6	amod	_	_
5	moving	move	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	amod	_	_
6	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
9	after	after	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
10	hatching	hatch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	usually	usually	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	swim	swim	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	feed	feed	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	conj	_	_
21	within	within	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
24	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	27	punct	_	_
25	male	male	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	mallards	mallard	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	_
27	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:conj
28	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obj	_	_
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
32	females	female	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	34	nsubj	_	_
33	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	34	cop	_	_
34	brown	brown	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
35	to	to	PART	TO	_	36	mark	_	_
36	hide	hide	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	34	advcl	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=34:xcomp
37	on	on	ADP	IN	_	39	case	_	_
38	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	39	det	_	_
39	nest	nest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	obl	_	_
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **follow** | present | Ducklings | the first moving thing |  |  |  |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Theme |
| 2 | **move** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **see** | present | ducklings *= duckling* | the first moving thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thing=Stimulus |
| 4 | **hatch** | gerund | ducklings *= duckling* *not said here* | ducklings's mother |  |  |  |  | vn grow-26.2.1 «NP.patient V PP.product»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **swim** | can | Ducklings *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **feed** | infinitive | Ducklings *not said here* |  |  |  | day |  | vn gorge-39.6 «NP V PP.patient»: agent=Agent |
| 7 | **have** | present | male mallards | green heads |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 8 | **is** | present | females |  |  |  |  | brown *property* | tree rules |
| 9 | **hide** | to-infinitive | females *not said here* |  |  | the nest |  |  | vn concealment-16-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on nest=Location |

<!-- .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:337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice.lesson:9`.

**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 ×2. **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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