---
title: Rotten eggs smell because bacteria break down proteins with sulphur… — Gases all around: breath and balloons · tree and pragmatics
description: Rotten eggs smell because bacteria break down proteins with sulphur in them and give off hydrogen sulphide gas; noses can sense tiny amounts of it, and some hot springs smell of it too. Who acts: Rotten eggs, bacteria, noses, hot springs. A sentence of the lesson «Gases all around: breath and balloo
---

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# Gases all around: breath and balloons, sentence 14

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Rotten eggs smell because bacteria break down proteins with sulphur in them and give off hydrogen sulphide gas; noses can sense tiny amounts of it, and some hot springs smell of it too.

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**Who acts:** Rotten eggs, bacteria, noses, hot springs · **What happens:** smell, break down, give off, sense, amount · **To what, where:** proteins, hydrogen sulphide gas, tiny amounts, sulphur

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Gases all around: breath and balloons» of the chemistry 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 (Rotten eggs, bacteria, noses, hot springs), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:chemistry:020-gases-all-around-breath-and-balloons.lesson:14
# text = Rotten eggs smell because bacteria break down proteins with sulphur in them and give off hydrogen sulphide gas; noses can sense tiny amounts of it, and some hot springs smell of it too.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = chemistry
# lesson = 020-gases-all-around-breath-and-balloons.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): R3-conj-first ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	Rotten	rotten	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	eggs	egg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	smell	smell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	bacteria	bacteria	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	break	break	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
7	down	down	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	proteins	protein	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	sulphur	sulphur	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nmod	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	give	give	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
15	off	off	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	hydrogen	hydrogen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
17	sulphide	sulphide	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	gas	gas	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
19	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	noses	nose	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
21	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	sense	sense	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:conj
23	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	amounts	amount	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nmod	_	_
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
29	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	31	det	_	_
30	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	springs	spring	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	nsubj	_	_
32	smell	smell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	Agree=R3-conj-first|Haiku=22:conj
33	of	of	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	obl	_	_
35	too	too	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	_
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	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 | **smell** | present | Rotten eggs |  |  |  |  |  | vn smell\_emission-43.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **break down** | present | bacteria | proteins |  |  |  | with sulphur in eggs | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent protein=Patient with sulphur=Instrument |
| 3 | **give off** | present | bacteria *not said here* | hydrogen sulphide gas |  |  |  |  | vn substance\_emission-43.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Source gas=Theme |
| 4 | **sense** | can | noses | tiny amounts of sulphur |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer amount=Stimulus |
| 5 | **smell** | present | some hot springs |  |  |  |  | of sulphur | vn smell\_emission-43.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Location of it=Theme |
| 6 | **amount** |  |  | sulphur |  |  |  |  | nom amount «possession transitive»: of=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:chemistry:020-gases-all-around-breath-and-balloons.lesson:14`.

**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): R3-conj-first ×1, R7-rel-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/).

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