--- title: The Virginia opossum may fall over, go stiff, drool and smell bad wh… — How animals defend themselves · tree and pragmatics description: The Virginia opossum may fall over, go stiff, drool and smell bad when terrified; it is more like fainting than acting, and many predators lose interest. Who acts: Virginia opossum, opossum, many predators. A sentence of the lesson «How animals defend themselves» of the biology course of Mova's prim --- [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/16/) [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/) / 16 # How animals defend themselves, sentence 16 The Virginia opossum may fall over, go stiff, drool and smell bad when terrified; it is more like fainting than acting, and many predators lose interest. **Who acts:** Virginia opossum, opossum, many predators · **What happens:** fall over, go, drool, smell, faint, act · **To what, where:** interest 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 (Virginia opossum, opossum, many predators), 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:16 # text = The Virginia opossum may fall over, go stiff, drool and smell bad when terrified; it is more like fainting than acting, and many predators lose interest. # 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 ×3 1 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 3 det _ _ 2 Virginia Virginia PROPN NNP Number=Sing 3 compound _ _ 3 opossum opossum NOUN NN Number=Sing 5 nsubj _ _ 4 may may AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 5 aux _ _ 5 fall fall VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 6 over over ADV RB _ 5 advmod _ _ 7 , , PUNCT , _ 8 punct _ _ 8 go go VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 5 conj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=5:xcomp 9 stiff stiff ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 xcomp _ _ 10 , , PUNCT , _ 11 punct _ _ 11 drool drool VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 8 conj _ _ 12 and and CCONJ CC _ 13 cc _ _ 13 smell smell VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 8 conj _ _ 14 bad bad ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 xcomp _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=13:advmod|HaikuPos=ADV:RB:_ 15 when when SCONJ WRB _ 16 mark _ _ 16 terrified terrified ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 advcl _ _ 17 ; ; PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 18 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 22 nsubj _ _ 19 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 22 aux _ _ 20 more more ADV RBR Degree=Cmp 22 advmod _ _ 21 like like SCONJ IN _ 22 mark _ _ 22 fainting faint VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 5 conj _ _ 23 than than ADP IN _ 24 case _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=24:mark|HaikuPos=SCONJ:IN:_ 24 acting act VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 22 advcl _ _ 25 , , PUNCT , _ 29 punct _ _ 26 and and CCONJ CC _ 29 cc _ _ 27 many many ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 28 amod _ _ 28 predators predator NOUN NNS Number=Plur 29 nsubj _ _ 29 lose lose VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 24 conj _ _ 30 interest interest NOUN NN Number=Sing 29 obj _ _ 31 . . PUNCT . _ 5 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: narrate - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **fall over** | may | the Virginia opossum | | | | | over *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 2 | **go** | infinitive | the Virginia opossum *not said here* | | | | | stiff *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 3 | **drool** | infinitive | the Virginia opossum *not said here* | | | | | | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **smell** | infinitive | the Virginia opossum *not said here* | | | | | bad *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus | | 5 | **faint** | present · progressive | opossum | | | | | | vn change\_bodily\_state-40.8.4 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer | | 6 | **act** | gerund | opossum *not said here* | | | | | | vn act-114-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 7 | **lose** | present | many predators | interest | | | | | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent interest=Eventuality | 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:16`. **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 ×3. **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, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/15/) - next →: [How animals defend themselves, 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/17/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/)