--- title: Welwitschia from the Namib Desert grows only two leaves in its whole… — Carnivorous and strange plants · tree and pragmatics description: Welwitschia from the Namib Desert grows only two leaves in its whole life; they keep growing from the base and are torn into ribbons by the wind, and some plants are thought to be over 1,000 years old. Who acts: Welwitschia, leaves, wind. A sentence of the lesson «Carnivorous and strange plants» of --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/61-carnivorous-and-strange-plants/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/) / [Carnivorous and strange plants](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/61-carnivorous-and-strange-plants/) / 16 # Carnivorous and strange plants, sentence 16 Welwitschia from the Namib Desert grows only two leaves in its whole life; they keep growing from the base and are torn into ribbons by the wind, and some plants are thought to be over 1,000 years old. **Who acts:** Welwitschia, leaves, wind · **What happens:** grow, keep, tear, think, be · **To what, where:** two leaves, whole life, ribbons, plants This is a sentence of the lesson «Carnivorous and strange plants» 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 (Welwitschia, leaves, wind), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:061-carnivorous-and-strange-plants.lesson:16 # text = Welwitschia from the Namib Desert grows only two leaves in its whole life; they keep growing from the base and are torn into ribbons by the wind, and some plants are thought to be over 1,000 years old. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 061-carnivorous-and-strange-plants.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 ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 Welwitschia welwitschia NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 nsubj _ _ 2 from from ADP IN _ 5 case _ _ 3 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 5 det _ _ 4 Namib Namib PROPN NNP Number=Sing 5 compound _ _ 5 Desert Desert PROPN NNP Number=Sing 1 nmod _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=1:nmod|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing 6 grows grow VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 7 only only ADV RB _ 8 advmod _ _ 8 two two NUM CD NumForm=Word|NumType=Card 9 nummod _ _ 9 leaves leaf NOUN NNS Number=Plur 6 obj _ _ 10 in in ADP IN _ 13 case _ _ 11 its its PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 13 nmod:poss _ _ 12 whole whole ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 amod _ _ 13 life life NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 obl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=9:nmod 14 ; ; PUNCT , _ 16 punct _ _ 15 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 16 nsubj _ _ 16 keep keep VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 6 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=6:conj 17 growing grow VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 16 xcomp _ _ 18 from from ADP IN _ 20 case _ _ 19 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 20 det _ _ 20 base base NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 obl _ _ 21 and and CCONJ CC _ 23 cc _ _ 22 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 23 aux:pass _ _ 23 torn tear VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 16 conj _ _ 24 into into ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 25 ribbons ribbon NOUN NNS Number=Plur 23 obl _ _ 26 by by ADP IN _ 28 case _ _ 27 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 28 det _ _ 28 wind wind NOUN NN Number=Sing 23 obl _ _ 29 , , PUNCT , _ 34 punct _ _ 30 and and CCONJ CC _ 34 cc _ _ 31 some some DET DT PronType=Ind 32 det _ _ 32 plants plant NOUN NNS Number=Plur 34 nsubj:pass _ _ 33 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 34 aux:pass _ _ 34 thought think VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 6 conj _ _ 35 to to PART TO _ 40 mark _ _ 36 be be AUX VB VerbForm=Inf 40 cop _ _ 37 over over ADV RB _ 38 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=40:advmod 38 1,000 1000 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 39 nummod _ _ 39 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 40 obl:unmarked _ _ 40 old old ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 34 xcomp _ _ 41 . . PUNCT . _ 6 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **grow** | present | Welwitschia from the Namib Desert | two leaves | | Welwitschia's whole life | | | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location leaf=Theme | | 2 | **keep** | present | leaves *= leaf* | | | | | | tree rules | | 3 | **grow** | gerund | leaves *= leaf* *not said here* | | | | | from the base | vn grow-26.2.1 «NP.product V PP.patient»: agent=Product from base=Patient | | 4 | **tear** | present · passive | the wind | | | ribbons | | | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into ribbon=Destination | | 5 | **think** *speech: other* | present · passive | | some plants | | | | | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme | | 6 | **is** | to-infinitive | | | | | year | old *property* | tree rules | 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:061-carnivorous-and-strange-plants.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): R5-strong ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×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: [Carnivorous and strange plants, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/61-carnivorous-and-strange-plants/15/) - next →: [Carnivorous and strange plants, 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/61-carnivorous-and-strange-plants/17/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/61-carnivorous-and-strange-plants/)