--- title: Maize came from teosinte, a wild grass of Mexico whose ear held only… — Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed t… · tree and pragmatics description: Maize came from teosinte, a wild grass of Mexico whose ear held only about a dozen hard kernels; farmers changed it over thousands of years by keeping seed from their best plants. Who acts: Maize, ear, farmers. A sentence of the lesson «Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world» of th --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/16/) [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/) / [Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants t…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/) / 16 # Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world, sentence 16 Maize came from teosinte, a wild grass of Mexico whose ear held only about a dozen hard kernels; farmers changed it over thousands of years by keeping seed from their best plants. **Who acts:** Maize, ear, farmers · **What happens:** come, hold, change, keep · **To what, where:** teosinte, dozen hard kernels, kernel, thousands, seed, best plants This is a sentence of the lesson «Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world» 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 (Maize, ear, farmers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world.lesson:16 # text = Maize came from teosinte, a wild grass of Mexico whose ear held only about a dozen hard kernels; farmers changed it over thousands of years by keeping seed from their best plants. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world.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 ×2, R7-rel-agree ×2 1 Maize maize NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 nsubj _ _ 2 came come VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 3 from from ADP IN _ 4 case _ _ 4 teosinte teosinte NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 obl _ _ 5 , , PUNCT , _ 8 punct _ _ 6 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 8 det _ _ 7 wild wild ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 amod _ _ 8 grass grass NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 appos _ _ 9 of of ADP IN _ 10 case _ _ 10 Mexico Mexico PROPN NNP Number=Sing 8 nmod _ _ 11 whose whose PRON WP$ Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel 12 nmod:poss _ _ 12 ear ear NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 nsubj _ _ 13 held hold VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 8 acl:relcl _ _ 14 only only ADV RB _ 17 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=13:advmod 15 about about ADV RB _ 17 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=19:case|HaikuPos=ADP:IN:_ 16 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 17 det _ _ 17 dozen dozen NUM CD NumForm=Word|NumType=Card 19 nummod _ _ 18 hard hard ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 19 amod _ _ 19 kernels kernel NOUN NNS Number=Plur 13 obj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=13:obl 20 ; ; PUNCT : _ 22 punct _ _ 21 farmers farmer NOUN NNS Number=Plur 22 nsubj _ _ 22 changed change VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 2 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:conj 23 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 22 obj _ _ 24 over over ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 25 thousands thousand NOUN NNS Number=Plur 22 obl _ _ 26 of of ADP IN _ 27 case _ _ 27 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 25 nmod _ _ 28 by by SCONJ IN _ 29 mark _ _ 29 keeping keep VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 22 advcl _ _ 30 seed seed NOUN NN Number=Sing 29 obj _ _ 31 from from ADP IN _ 34 case _ _ 32 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 34 nmod:poss _ _ 33 best good ADJ JJS Degree=Sup 34 amod _ _ 34 plants plant NOUN NNS Number=Plur 29 obl _ _ 35 . . PUNCT . _ 2 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **come** | past | Maize | | | teosinte | | | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from teosinte=Initial\_Location | | 2 | **hold** | past | ear | dozen hard kernels | | | | | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent kernel=Theme | | 3 | **change** | past | farmers | kernel | | thousands of years | | | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient | | 4 | **keep** | gerund | farmers *not said here* | seed | | Maize's best plants | | | vn forbid-64.4 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Causer seed=Beneficiary from plant=Eventuality | 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. **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:345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world.lesson:16`. **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 ×2, 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/). - ← previous: [Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants t…, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/15/) - next →: [Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants t…, 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/17/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/)