---
title: African elephants are the largest land animals, weighing about 6 ton… — The savanna: grass, trees and the great herds · tree and pragmatics
description: African elephants are the largest land animals, weighing about 6 tonnes or more; they spray dust and mud to protect their skin and flap their big ears to cool their blood. Who acts: African elephants, tonnes. A sentence of the lesson «The savanna: grass, trees and the great herds» of the biology cou
---

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# The savanna: grass, trees and the great herds, sentence 10

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
African elephants are the largest land animals, weighing about 6 tonnes or more; they spray dust and mud to protect their skin and flap their big ears to cool their blood.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** African elephants, tonnes · **What happens:** be, weigh, spray, protect, flap, cool · **To what, where:** largest land animals, 6 tonnes, dust, skin, big ears, blood

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «The savanna: grass, trees and the great herds» 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 (African elephants, tonnes), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:004-the-savanna.lesson:10
# text = African elephants are the largest land animals, weighing about 6 tonnes or more; they spray dust and mud to protect their skin and flap their big ears to cool their blood.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 004-the-savanna.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): no change
1	African	African	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	elephants	elephant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	largest	large	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	7	amod	_	_
6	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	weighing	weigh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	advcl	_	_
10	about	about	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	6	6	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	tonnes	tonne	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
13	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	conj	_	_
15	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	spray	spray	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
18	dust	dust	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	mud	mud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	protect	protect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	advcl	_	_
23	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	flap	flap	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	conj	_	_
27	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
28	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obj	_	_
30	to	to	PART	TO	_	31	mark	_	_
31	cool	cool	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	advcl	_	_
32	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	33	nmod:poss	_	_
33	blood	blood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obj	_	_
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | African elephants | the largest land animals |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **weigh** | gerund | African elephants *not said here* | 6 tonnes |  |  |  |  | vn register-54.1-2-1 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Theme tonne=Value |
| 3 | **spray** | present | tonnes *= tonne* | dust and mud |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent dust=Theme |
| 4 | **protect** | to-infinitive | tonnes *= tonne* *not said here* | tonnes's skin |  |  |  |  | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent skin=Beneficiary |
| 5 | **flap** | infinitive | tonnes *= tonne* *not said here* | tonnes's big ears |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ear=Patient |
| 6 | **cool** | to-infinitive | tonnes *= tonne* *not said here* | tonnes's blood |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent blood=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:004-the-savanna.lesson:10`.

**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): no change. **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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