--- title: A skunk can spray a very smelly liquid up to about 3 metres, but it… — How animals defend themselves · tree and pragmatics description: A skunk can spray a very smelly liquid up to about 3 metres, but it usually warns first by stamping, hissing and raising its tail. Who acts: skunk. A sentence of the lesson «How animals defend themselves» of the biology course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e --- [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/7/) [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/) / 7 # How animals defend themselves, sentence 7 A skunk can spray a very smelly liquid up to about 3 metres, but it usually warns first by stamping, hissing and raising its tail. **Who acts:** skunk · **What happens:** spray, warn, stamp, hiss, raise · **To what, where:** smelly liquid, tail 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 (skunk), 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:7 # text = A skunk can spray a very smelly liquid up to about 3 metres, but it usually warns first by stamping, hissing and raising its tail. # 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): R1-cc-next ×2, R3-conj-first ×1, R5-strong ×1 1 A a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 2 det _ _ 2 skunk skunk NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 nsubj _ _ 3 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 4 aux _ _ 4 spray spray VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 5 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 8 det _ _ 6 very very ADV RB _ 7 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=8:advmod 7 smelly smelly ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 amod _ _ 8 liquid liquid NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 obj _ _ 9 up up ADP IN _ 13 case _ _ 10 to to ADP IN _ 9 fixed _ _ 11 about about ADV RB _ 12 advmod _ _ 12 3 3 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 13 nummod _ _ 13 metres metre NOUN NNS Number=Plur 8 obl _ _ 14 , , PUNCT , _ 4 punct _ _ 15 but but CCONJ CC _ 18 cc _ Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=4:cc 16 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 18 nsubj _ _ 17 usually usually ADV RB _ 18 advmod _ _ 18 warns warn VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 4 conj _ _ 19 first first ADV RB NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord 18 advmod _ _ 20 by by SCONJ IN _ 21 mark _ _ 21 stamping stamp VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 18 advcl _ _ 22 , , PUNCT , _ 23 punct _ _ 23 hissing hiss VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 21 conj _ _ 24 and and CCONJ CC _ 25 cc _ Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=23:cc 25 raising raise VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 21 conj _ Agree=R3-conj-first|Haiku=23:conj 26 its its PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 27 nmod:poss _ _ 27 tail tail NOUN NN Number=Sing 25 obj _ _ 28 . . 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 | **spray** | can | a skunk | a smelly liquid | | | | | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent liquid=Theme | | 2 | **warn** *speech: warn* | present | skunk | | | | | first, usually *property* | vn advise-37.9-1 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **stamp** | gerund | skunk *not said here* | | | | | | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **hiss** | gerund | skunk *not said here* | | | | | | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 5 | **raise** | gerund | skunk *not said here* | skunk's tail | | | | | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=Theme | 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:7`. **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): R1-cc-next ×2, R3-conj-first ×1, R5-strong ×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/). - ← previous: [How animals defend themselves, 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/6/) - next →: [How animals defend themselves, 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/8/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/)