--- title: Many lizards can drop their tail on purpose; it wriggles to distract… — How animals defend themselves · tree and pragmatics description: Many lizards can drop their tail on purpose; it wriggles to distract the attacker, and the new tail grows back with cartilage instead of bones; growing a new one costs the lizard a lot of energy. Who acts: Many lizards, tail, new tail, growing. A sentence of the lesson «How animals defend themselves --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/10/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / [How animals defend themselves](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/) / 10 # How animals defend themselves, sentence 10 Many lizards can drop their tail on purpose; it wriggles to distract the attacker, and the new tail grows back with cartilage instead of bones; growing a new one costs the lizard a lot of energy. **Who acts:** Many lizards, tail, new tail, growing · **What happens:** drop, wriggle, distract, grow back, grow, cost · **To what, where:** tail, purpose, attacker, new one, lot, lizard This is a sentence of the lesson «How animals defend themselves» 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 (Many lizards, tail, new tail, growing), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:053-how-animals-defend-themselves.lesson:10 # text = Many lizards can drop their tail on purpose; it wriggles to distract the attacker, and the new tail grows back with cartilage instead of bones; growing a new one costs the lizard a lot of energy. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 053-how-animals-defend-themselves.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): R7-rel-agree ×2 1 Many many ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 amod _ _ 2 lizards lizard NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 nsubj _ _ 3 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 4 aux _ _ 4 drop drop VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 5 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 6 nmod:poss _ _ 6 tail tail NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 obj _ _ 7 on on ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 8 purpose purpose NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 obl _ _ 9 ; ; PUNCT : _ 11 punct _ _ 10 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 11 nsubj _ _ 11 wriggles wriggle VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 4 parataxis _ _ 12 to to PART TO _ 13 mark _ _ 13 distract distract VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 11 advcl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=11:xcomp 14 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 15 det _ _ 15 attacker attacker NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 obj _ _ 16 , , PUNCT , _ 21 punct _ _ 17 and and CCONJ CC _ 21 cc _ _ 18 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 20 det _ _ 19 new new ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 20 amod _ _ 20 tail tail NOUN NN Number=Sing 21 nsubj _ _ 21 grows grow VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 4 conj _ _ 22 back back ADV RB _ 21 advmod _ _ 23 with with ADP IN _ 24 case _ _ 24 cartilage cartilage NOUN NN Number=Sing 21 obl _ _ 25 instead instead ADV RB ExtPos=ADP 27 case _ _ 26 of of ADP IN _ 25 fixed _ _ 27 bones bone NOUN NNS Number=Plur 21 obl _ _ 28 ; ; PUNCT : _ 33 punct _ _ 29 growing grow VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 33 csubj _ _ 30 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 32 det _ _ 31 new new ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 32 amod _ _ 32 one one NOUN NN Number=Sing 29 obj _ _ 33 costs cost VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 4 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:conj 34 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 35 det _ _ 35 lizard lizard NOUN NN Number=Sing 33 iobj _ _ 36 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 37 det _ _ 37 lot lot NOUN NN Number=Sing 33 obj _ _ 38 of of ADP IN _ 39 case _ _ 39 energy energy NOUN NN Number=Sing 37 nmod _ _ 40 . . PUNCT . _ 4 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **drop** | can | Many lizards | lizards's tail | | purpose | | | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent tail=Theme on purpose=Destination | | 2 | **wriggle** | present | tail | | | | | | vn body\_internal\_motion-49.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **distract** | to-infinitive | tail *not said here* | the attacker | | | | | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus attacker=Experiencer | | 4 | **grow back** | present | the new tail | | | | | with cartilage; instead bones | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 5 | **grow** | gerund | | a new one | | | | | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location one=Theme | | 6 | **cost** | present | growing | a lot of energy | the lizard | | | | vn cost-54.2 «NP V NP NP»: agent=Theme lizard=Beneficiary lot=Value | 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. **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:053-how-animals-defend-themselves.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): 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/). - ← previous: [How animals defend themselves, 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/9/) - next →: [How animals defend themselves, 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/11/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/)