---
title: Vultures ride thermals, columns of warm air rising from ground heate… — Birds of prey and owls · tree and pragmatics
description: Vultures ride thermals, columns of warm air rising from ground heated by the sun, so they soar most in the hot middle of the day, and glide for hours looking for dead animals; their strong stomach acid kills germs in rotting meat. Who acts: Vultures, warm air, strong stomach acid. A sentence of the 
---

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# Birds of prey and owls, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Vultures ride thermals, columns of warm air rising from ground heated by the sun, so they soar most in the hot middle of the day, and glide for hours looking for dead animals; their strong stomach acid kills germs in rotting meat.

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**Who acts:** Vultures, warm air, strong stomach acid · **What happens:** ride, rise, heat, soar, glide, look · **To what, where:** thermals, ground, germs, rotting meat

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Birds of prey and owls» 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 (Vultures, warm air, strong stomach acid), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:034-birds-of-prey-and-owls.lesson:12
# text = Vultures ride thermals, columns of warm air rising from ground heated by the sun, so they soar most in the hot middle of the day, and glide for hours looking for dead animals; their strong stomach acid kills germs in rotting meat.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 034-birds-of-prey-and-owls.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, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	Vultures	vulture	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	ride	ride	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	thermals	thermal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	columns	column	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	appos	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:conj
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	warm	warm	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
9	rising	rise	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	from	from	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
12	heated	heat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	soar	soar	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
20	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	19	advmod	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
30	glide	glide	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	conj	_	_
31	for	for	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	hours	hour	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	obl	_	_
33	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	30	advcl	_	_
34	for	for	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
36	animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	obl	_	_
37	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	43	punct	_	_
38	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	41	nmod:poss	_	_
39	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	41	amod	_	_
40	stomach	stomach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	41	compound	_	_
41	acid	acid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	42	nsubj	_	_
42	kills	kill	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
43	germs	germ	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	42	obj	_	_
44	in	in	ADP	IN	_	46	case	_	_
45	rotting	rot	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	46	amod	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=46:amod|HaikuPos=ADJ:JJ:Degree=Pos
46	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	43	nmod	_	_
47	.	.	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 | **ride** | present | Vultures | thermals |  |  |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thermal=Theme |
| 2 | **rise** | gerund | warm air *not said here* |  |  | ground |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from ground=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **heat** | participle |  | ground *not said here* |  |  |  | by the sun | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **soar** | present | Vultures *= vulture* |  |  |  |  | in the hot middle of the day | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.patient V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in middle=Attribute |
| 5 | **glide** | present | Vultures *= vulture* *not said here* |  |  |  | hour |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **look** | gerund | Vultures *= vulture* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for dead animals | vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent for animal=Theme |
| 7 | **kill** | present | Vultures's strong stomach acid | germs |  | rotting meat |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent germ=Theme |
| 8 | **rot** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn entity\_specific\_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: agent=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:034-birds-of-prey-and-owls.lesson:12`.

**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, 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/).

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