---
title: A desert is a place with very little rain, not necessarily a hot one… — The desert: living with little water · tree and pragmatics
description: A desert is a place with very little rain, not necessarily a hot one: deserts bake by day but can freeze at night, because dry air and clear skies let the ground's heat escape into space once the sun goes down. Who acts: desert, deserts, dry air, sun. A sentence of the lesson «The desert: living wit
---

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# The desert: living with little water, sentence 0

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A desert is a place with very little rain, not necessarily a hot one: deserts bake by day but can freeze at night, because dry air and clear skies let the ground's heat escape into space once the sun goes down.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** desert, deserts, dry air, sun, ground · **What happens:** be, bake, freeze, let, escape, go down · **To what, where:** place, space

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This is a sentence of the lesson «The desert: living with little water» 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 (desert, deserts, dry air, sun), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:005-the-desert.lesson:0
# text = A desert is a place with very little rain, not necessarily a hot one: deserts bake by day but can freeze at night, because dry air and clear skies let the ground's heat escape into space once the sun goes down.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 005-the-desert.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 ×4, R7-rel-agree ×2
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	desert	desert	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	rain	rain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	necessarily	necessarily	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	appos	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=5:conj
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
17	deserts	desert	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
18	bake	bake	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
19	by	by	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
21	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	freeze	freeze	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	conj	_	_
24	at	at	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
27	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	33	mark	_	_
28	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	nsubj	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
31	clear	clear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	skies	sky	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	conj	_	_
33	let	let	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	advcl	_	_
34	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	nmod:poss	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=38:nmod:poss
36	's	's	PART	POS	_	35	case	_	_
37	heat	heat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	38	compound	_	_
38	escape	escape	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	33	xcomp	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=33:obj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing
39	into	into	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
40	space	space	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	38	obl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=33:obl
41	once	once	SCONJ	IN	_	44	mark	_	_
42	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	43	det	_	_
43	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	44	nsubj	_	_
44	goes	go	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	38	advcl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=33:conj
45	down	down	ADV	RB	_	44	compound:prt	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=44:advmod
46	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	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 | a desert | a place |  |  |  | with little rain | tree rules |
| 2 | **bake** | present | deserts |  |  |  | day |  | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **freeze** | can | deserts *not said here* |  |  |  | night |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **let** | present | dry air and clear skies |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **escape** | infinitive | dry air and clear skies *not said here* |  |  | space |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme into space=Initial\_Location |
| 6 | **go down** | present | the sun |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 7 | **heat** |  | the ground |  |  |  |  |  | nom heat «phenomenon intransitive»: 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:005-the-desert.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 ×4, R7-rel-agree ×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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