---
title: A predator hunts and kills other animals for food, its prey; scaveng… — Who eats whom: predators, prey, scavengers and d… · tree and pragmatics
description: A predator hunts and kills other animals for food, its prey; scavengers eat animals that are already dead, and decomposers such as fungi, worms and dung beetles break down dead things and dung so the goodness goes back to the soil. Who acts: predator, scavengers, animals, decomposers. A sentence of 
---

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# Who eats whom: predators, prey, scavengers and decomposers, sentence 0

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A predator hunts and kills other animals for food, its prey; scavengers eat animals that are already dead, and decomposers such as fungi, worms and dung beetles break down dead things and dung so the goodness goes back to the soil.

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**Who acts:** predator, scavengers, animals, decomposers, goodness · **What happens:** hunt, kill, eat, be, break down, go back · **To what, where:** other animals, animals, dead things

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Who eats whom: predators, prey, scavengers and decomposers» 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 (predator, scavengers, animals, decomposers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:047-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers.lesson:0
# text = A predator hunts and kills other animals for food, its prey; scavengers eat animals that are already dead, and decomposers such as fungi, worms and dung beetles break down dead things and dung so the goodness goes back to the soil.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 047-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers.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, R6-punct-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	predator	predator	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	hunts	hunt	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	kills	kill	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	prey	prey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	appos	_	_
13	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	scavengers	scavenger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
15	eat	eat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
16	animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
18	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	already	already	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	acl:relcl	_	_
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=23:punct
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
23	decomposers	decomposer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	nsubj	_	_
24	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|ExtPos=ADP	26	case	_	_
25	as	as	ADP	IN	_	24	fixed	_	_
26	fungi	fungi	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	_
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
28	worms	worm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	conj	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=23:conj
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
30	dung	dung	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	compound	_	_
31	beetles	beetle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	_
32	break	break	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=15:conj|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:VerbForm=Inf
33	down	down	ADP	RP	_	32	compound:prt	_	_
34	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	35	amod	_	_
35	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	obj	_	_
36	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	37	cc	_	_
37	dung	dung	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	conj	_	_
38	so	so	SCONJ	IN	_	41	mark	_	_
39	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	40	det	_	_
40	goodness	goodness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	41	nsubj	_	_
41	goes	go	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	32	advcl	_	_
42	back	back	ADV	RB	_	41	advmod	_	_
43	to	to	ADP	IN	_	45	case	_	_
44	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	45	det	_	_
45	soil	soil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	41	obl	_	_
46	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed polarity=none

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hunt** | present | a predator |  |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **kill** | present | a predator *not said here* | other animals |  |  |  | for food | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent animal=Theme |
| 3 | **eat** | present | scavengers | animals |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent animal=Patient |
| 4 | **is** | present | animals |  |  |  |  | dead *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **break down** | present | decomposers such fungi and worms and dung beetles | dead things and dung |  |  |  |  | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Patient |
| 6 | **go back** | present | the goodness |  |  |  |  | to the soil *result* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to soil=Result |

<!-- .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:047-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers.lesson:0`.

**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, R6-punct-agree ×1, 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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