---
title: When the first platypus skin reached Britain around 1799, a scientis… — The platypus and the echidna: mammals that lay e… · tree and pragmatics
description: When the first platypus skin reached Britain around 1799, a scientist looked for stitches, sure that a joker had sewn a duck's bill onto a furry animal, like a toy made from bits of two other toys. Who acts: first platypus skin, scientist, joker, duck. A sentence of the lesson «The platypus and the 
---

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# The platypus and the echidna: mammals that lay eggs, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When the first platypus skin reached Britain around 1799, a scientist looked for stitches, sure that a joker had sewn a duck's bill onto a furry animal, like a toy made from bits of two other toys.

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**Who acts:** first platypus skin, scientist, joker, duck · **What happens:** reach, look, sew, make, bill · **To what, where:** Britain, 1799, bill, toy, bits

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This is a sentence of the lesson «The platypus and the echidna: mammals that lay eggs» 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 (first platypus skin, scientist, joker, duck), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:043-platypus-and-echidna.lesson:2
# text = When the first platypus skin reached Britain around 1799, a scientist looked for stitches, sure that a joker had sewn a duck's bill onto a furry animal, like a toy made from bits of two other toys.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 043-platypus-and-echidna.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 ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	6	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	5	amod	_	_
4	platypus	platypus	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
7	Britain	Britain	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=5:appos
8	around	around	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	1799	1799	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	6	obl	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	scientist	scientist	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	stitches	stitch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	advcl	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=13:parataxis
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	joker	joker	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
21	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	sewn	sew	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	17	ccomp	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod:poss	_	_
25	's	's	PART	POS	_	24	case	_	_
26	bill	bill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
27	onto	onto	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
29	furry	furry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
31	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
32	like	like	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	toy	toy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
35	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	34	acl	_	_
36	from	from	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
37	bits	bit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	35	obl	_	_
38	of	of	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
39	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	41	nummod	_	_
40	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	41	amod	_	_
41	toys	toy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	37	nmod	_	_
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reach** | past | the first platypus skin | Britain |  | 1799 |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent britain=Theme |
| 2 | **look** | past | a scientist |  |  |  |  | for stitches | vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent for stitch=Theme |
| 3 | **sew** | past · perfect | a joker | a duck's bill |  |  |  | onto a furry animal; like a toy | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent bill=Theme onto animal=Destination |
| 4 | **make** | participle |  | a toy *not said here* |  | bits of two other toys |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V PP»: agent=Asset from bit=Material |
| 5 | **bill** |  | a duck |  |  |  |  |  | nom bill «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:043-platypus-and-echidna.lesson:2`.

**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 ×1, R7-rel-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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