---
title: Rice can grow in flooded fields because air passes down spongy tubes… — Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed t… · tree and pragmatics
description: Rice can grow in flooded fields because air passes down spongy tubes in its stems to the roots, and flooding drowns many weeds; some farmers keep ducks or fish in the paddy to eat pests and weeds. Who acts: Rice, air, flooding, farmers. A sentence of the lesson «Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants 
---

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# Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world, sentence 9

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Rice can grow in flooded fields because air passes down spongy tubes in its stems to the roots, and flooding drowns many weeds; some farmers keep ducks or fish in the paddy to eat pests and weeds.

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**Who acts:** Rice, air, flooding, farmers · **What happens:** grow, flood, pass down, drown, keep, eat · **To what, where:** flooded fields, spongy tubes, roots, many weeds, ducks, paddy

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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 (Rice, air, flooding, 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:9
# text = Rice can grow in flooded fields because air passes down spongy tubes in its stems to the roots, and flooding drowns many weeds; some farmers keep ducks or fish in the paddy to eat pests and weeds.
# 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, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	Rice	rice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	grow	grow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	flooded	flood	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	amod	_	_
6	fields	field	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
7	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	passes	pass	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
10	down	down	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	spongy	spongy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	tubes	tube	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	stems	stem	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	roots	root	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=15:nmod
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	flooding	flooding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
22	drowns	drown	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
23	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	weeds	weed	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obj	_	_
25	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
26	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	27	det	_	_
27	farmers	farmer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	nsubj	_	_
28	keep	keep	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	conj	_	_
29	ducks	duck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	obj	_	_
30	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	fish	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	conj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=29:conj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing
32	in	in	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	paddy	paddy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	_
35	to	to	PART	TO	_	36	mark	_	_
36	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	advcl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=34:acl
37	pests	pest	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	36	obj	_	_
38	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
39	weeds	weed	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	37	conj	_	_
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	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 | **grow** | can | Rice |  |  | flooded fields |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in field=Location |
| 2 | **flood** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **pass down** | present | air | spongy tubes in air's stems |  | the roots |  | down *property* | vn escape-51.1-1-3 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to root=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **drown** | present | flooding | many weeds |  |  |  |  | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent weed=Patient |
| 5 | **keep** | present | some farmers | ducks or fish |  | the paddy |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent duck=Theme in paddy=Location |
| 6 | **eat** | to-infinitive | some farmers *not said here* | pests and weeds |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pest=Patient |
| 7 | **stem** |  | air |  |  |  |  |  | nom stem «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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:345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world.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): R5-strong ×2, 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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