--- title: Whales are mammals whose ancestors walked on land about 50 million y… — Evolution simply: why living things change over… · tree and pragmatics description: Whales are mammals whose ancestors walked on land about 50 million years ago; their back legs shrank to small hidden bones, and their closest living land relative is the hippopotamus. Who acts: Whales, ancestors, back legs, closest living land relative. A sentence of the lesson «Evolution simply: wh --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/73-evolution-simply/8/) [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/) / [Evolution simply: why living things ch…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/73-evolution-simply/) / 8 # Evolution simply: why living things change over many generations, sentence 8 Whales are mammals whose ancestors walked on land about 50 million years ago; their back legs shrank to small hidden bones, and their closest living land relative is the hippopotamus. **Who acts:** Whales, ancestors, back legs, closest living land relative · **What happens:** be, walk, shrink · **To what, where:** mammals, land, hippopotamus This is a sentence of the lesson «Evolution simply: why living things change over many generations» 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 (Whales, ancestors, back legs, closest living land relative), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:073-evolution-simply.lesson:8 # text = Whales are mammals whose ancestors walked on land about 50 million years ago; their back legs shrank to small hidden bones, and their closest living land relative is the hippopotamus. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 073-evolution-simply.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): R2-punct-next ×1, R5-strong ×3, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×3 1 Whales whale NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ _ 2 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 cop _ _ 3 mammals mammal NOUN NNS Number=Plur 0 root _ _ 4 whose whose PRON WP$ Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel 5 nmod:poss _ _ 5 ancestors ancestor NOUN NNS Number=Plur 6 nsubj _ _ 6 walked walk VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 3 acl:relcl _ _ 7 on on ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 8 land land NOUN NN Number=Sing 6 obl _ _ 9 about about ADV RB _ 11 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=10:advmod 10 50 50 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 11 compound _ _ 11 million million NUM CD NumForm=Word|NumType=Card 12 nummod _ _ 12 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 13 obl:unmarked _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=6:obl:unmarked 13 ago ago ADV RB _ 6 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=12:advmod 14 ; ; PUNCT , _ 18 punct _ _ 15 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 17 nmod:poss _ _ 16 back back NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 compound _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=17:amod|HaikuPos=ADJ:JJ:Degree=Pos 17 legs leg NOUN NNS Number=Plur 18 nsubj _ _ 18 shrank shrink VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 19 to to ADP IN _ 22 case _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=22:mark|HaikuPos=PART:TO:_ 20 small small ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 22 amod _ _ 21 hidden hidden ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 22 amod _ _ 22 bones bone NOUN NNS Number=Plur 18 obl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=18:advcl 23 , , PUNCT , _ 32 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=18:punct 24 and and CCONJ CC _ 32 cc _ _ 25 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 29 nmod:poss _ _ 26 closest close ADJ JJS Degree=Sup 29 amod _ _ 27 living living ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 29 amod _ _ 28 land land NOUN NN Number=Sing 29 compound _ _ 29 relative relative NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 nsubj _ _ 30 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 32 cop _ _ 31 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 32 det _ _ 32 hippopotamus hippopotamus NOUN NN Number=Sing 18 conj _ _ 33 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=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 | **is a** | present | Whales | mammals | | | | | tree rules | | 2 | **walk** | past | ancestors | | | land | | ago *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on land=Trajectory | | 3 | **shrink** | past | ancestors's back legs | | | | | to small hidden bones *result* | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Agent to bone=Result | | 4 | **is a** | present | ancestors's closest living land relative | the hippopotamus | | | | | 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:073-evolution-simply.lesson:8`. **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): R2-punct-next ×1, R5-strong ×3, R6-punct-agree ×1, 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: [Evolution simply: why living things ch…, 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/73-evolution-simply/7/) - next →: [Evolution simply: why living things ch…, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/73-evolution-simply/10/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/73-evolution-simply/)