--- title: Coprolites are fossilised droppings that show what ancient animals a… — Fossils: how we know about life long ago · tree and pragmatics description: Coprolites are fossilised droppings that show what ancient animals ate; William Buckland recognised them in the 1820s, and Mary Anning noticed them inside ichthyosaur skeletons. Who acts: Coprolites, fossilised droppings, ancient animals, William. A sentence of the lesson «Fossils: how we know about --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/74-fossils-life-long-ago/11/) [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/) / [Fossils: how we know about life long ago](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/74-fossils-life-long-ago/) / 11 # Fossils: how we know about life long ago, sentence 11 Coprolites are fossilised droppings that show what ancient animals ate; William Buckland recognised them in the 1820s, and Mary Anning noticed them inside ichthyosaur skeletons. **Who acts:** Coprolites, fossilised droppings, ancient animals, William, Mary · **What happens:** fossilise, be, show, ate, recognise, notice · **To what, where:** fossilised droppings, Coprolites, 1820s, ichthyosaur skeletons · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Fossils: how we know about life long ago» 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 (Coprolites, fossilised droppings, ancient animals, William), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:074-fossils-life-long-ago.lesson:11 # text = Coprolites are fossilised droppings that show what ancient animals ate; William Buckland recognised them in the 1820s, and Mary Anning noticed them inside ichthyosaur skeletons. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 074-fossils-life-long-ago.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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 Coprolites coprolite NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ _ 2 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 4 cop _ _ 3 fossilised fossilise VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 4 amod _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=4:amod|HaikuPos=ADJ:VBN:_ 4 droppings dropping NOUN NNS Number=Plur 0 root _ _ 5 that that PRON WDT PronType=Rel 6 nsubj _ _ 6 show show VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 4 acl:relcl _ _ 7 what what PRON WP PronType=Int 10 obj _ _ 8 ancient ancient ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 9 amod _ _ 9 animals animal NOUN NNS Number=Plur 10 nsubj _ _ 10 ate ate VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 6 ccomp _ _ 11 ; ; PUNCT : _ 14 punct _ _ 12 William William PROPN NNP Number=Sing 14 nsubj _ _ 13 Buckland Buckland PROPN NNP Number=Sing 12 flat _ _ 14 recognised recognise VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 4 parataxis _ _ 15 them they PRON PRP Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 14 obj _ _ 16 in in ADP IN _ 18 case _ _ 17 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 18 det _ _ 18 1820s 1820 NOUN NNS Number=Ptan|NumForm=Combi|NumType=Card 14 obl _ _ 19 , , PUNCT , _ 23 punct _ _ 20 and and CCONJ CC _ 23 cc _ _ 21 Mary Mary PROPN NNP Number=Sing 23 nsubj _ _ 22 Anning Anning PROPN NNP Number=Sing 21 flat _ _ 23 noticed notice VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 14 conj _ _ 24 them they PRON PRP Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 23 obj _ _ 25 inside inside ADP IN _ 27 case _ _ 26 ichthyosaur ichthyosaur NOUN NN Number=Sing 27 compound _ _ 27 skeletons skeleton NOUN NNS Number=Plur 23 obl _ _ 28 . . PUNCT . _ 4 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=3:punct ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **fossilise** | participle | Coprolites | | | | | | tree rules | | 2 | **is a** | present | | fossilised droppings | | | | | tree rules | | 3 | **show** | present | fossilised droppings | | | | | | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 4 | **ate** | past | ancient animals | | | | | | tree rules | | 5 | **recognise** | past | William | Coprolites *= coprolite* | | the 1820s | | | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer they=Stimulus | | 6 | **notice** | past | Mary | Coprolites *= coprolite* | | ichthyosaur skeletons | | | vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer they=Stimulus | 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:074-fossils-life-long-ago.lesson:11`. **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): R6-punct-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: [Fossils: how we know about life long ago, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/74-fossils-life-long-ago/10/) - next →: [Fossils: how we know about life long ago, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/74-fossils-life-long-ago/12/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/74-fossils-life-long-ago/)