---
title: The sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica, folds its leaves within seconds… — Roots, stems and leaves · tree and pragmatics
description: The sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica, folds its leaves within seconds when touched, as water rushes out of cells at the base of each leaf; plants have no nerves or muscles. Who acts: sensitive plant, water, plants. A sentence of the lesson «Roots, stems and leaves» of the biology course of Mova's prim
---

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# Roots, stems and leaves, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica, folds its leaves within seconds when touched, as water rushes out of cells at the base of each leaf; plants have no nerves or muscles.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sensitive plant, water, plants · **What happens:** fold, touch, rush out, have · **To what, where:** leaves, base, cells, nerves

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Roots, stems and leaves» 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 (sensitive plant, water, plants), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:057-roots-stems-and-leaves.lesson:15
# text = The sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica, folds its leaves within seconds when touched, as water rushes out of cells at the base of each leaf; plants have no nerves or muscles.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 057-roots-stems-and-leaves.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): no change
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	sensitive	sensitive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	plant	plant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	Mimosa	Mimosa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	pudica	pudica	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	folds	fold	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	leaves	leaf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	within	within	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	seconds	second	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
13	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	14	mark	_	_
14	touched	touch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	advcl	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
17	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	rushes	rush	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
19	out	out	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	cells	cell	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	base	base	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	27	det	_	_
27	leaf	leaf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
28	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	30	punct	_	_
29	plants	plant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	nsubj	_	_
30	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
31	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	32	det	_	_
32	nerves	nerve	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	obj	_	_
33	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
34	muscles	muscle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	conj	_	_
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	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 | **fold** | present | the sensitive plant | plant's leaves |  |  | second |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent leaf=Patient |
| 2 | **touch** | participle | the sensitive plant *not said here* |  |  | the base of each leaf |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **rush out** | present | water | cells |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme cell=Trajectory |
| 4 | **have** | present | plants | no nerves or muscles |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nerve=Patient |

<!-- .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:057-roots-stems-and-leaves.lesson:15`.

**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): no change. **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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