---
title: A giraffe's tongue is about 45 to 50 cm long and dark blue-black, wh… — More record-breakers and oddballs: sloth, narwha… · tree and pragmatics
description: A giraffe's tongue is about 45 to 50 cm long and dark blue-black, which may protect it from sunburn, though scientists are not certain; it wraps the tongue round acacia leaves to pull them from between the thorns. Who acts: tongue, scientists, giraffe. A sentence of the lesson «More record-breakers 
---

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# More record-breakers and oddballs: sloth, narwhal, chameleon, electric eel, giraffe, sentence 17

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A giraffe's tongue is about 45 to 50 cm long and dark blue-black, which may protect it from sunburn, though scientists are not certain; it wraps the tongue round acacia leaves to pull them from between the thorns.

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**Who acts:** tongue, scientists, giraffe · **What happens:** be, protect, not be, wrap, pull · **To what, where:** giraffe, tongue, scientists

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This is a sentence of the lesson «More record-breakers and oddballs: sloth, narwhal, chameleon, electric eel, giraffe» 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 (tongue, scientists, giraffe), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:045-sloth-narwhal-chameleon-eel-giraffe.lesson:17
# text = A giraffe's tongue is about 45 to 50 cm long and dark blue-black, which may protect it from sunburn, though scientists are not certain; it wraps the tongue round acacia leaves to pull them from between the thorns.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 045-sloth-narwhal-chameleon-eel-giraffe.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
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	giraffe	giraffe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	_
3	's	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
6	about	about	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	45	45	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	50	50	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	7	nmod	_	_
10	cm	cm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl:unmarked	_	_
11	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	_
14	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	_
16	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=13:parataxis
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
19	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	protect	protect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	acl:relcl	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	from	from	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	sunburn	sunburn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
25	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
26	scientists	scientist	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	nsubj	_	_
27	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
28	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	29	advmod	_	_
29	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	advcl	_	_
30	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
31	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	nsubj	_	_
32	wraps	wrap	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	parataxis	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obj	_	_
35	round	round	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
36	acacia	acacia	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	compound	_	_
37	leaves	leaf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	obl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=34:nmod
38	to	to	PART	TO	_	39	mark	_	_
39	pull	pull	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	32	advcl	_	_
40	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	39	obj	_	_
41	from	from	ADP	IN	_	39	obl	_	_
42	between	between	ADP	IN	_	44	case	_	_
43	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	44	det	_	_
44	thorns	thorn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	39	obl	_	_
45	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | a giraffe's tongue |  |  |  |  | 45 cm *obl:unmarked*; long *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | a giraffe's tongue *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | a giraffe's tongue *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **protect** | may |  | giraffe |  |  |  | from sunburn | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent it=Beneficiary from sunburn=Theme |
| 5 | **not** **is** | present | scientists |  |  |  |  | certain *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **wrap** | present | giraffe | the tongue |  |  |  | round acacia leaves | tree rules |
| 7 | **pull** | to-infinitive | giraffe *not said here* | scientists *= scientist* |  |  |  | between the thorns | vn push-12-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

<!-- .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:045-sloth-narwhal-chameleon-eel-giraffe.lesson:17`.

**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. **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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