---
title: Ducks spread oil from a gland near the tail over their feathers, so… — Oil and water, and things that won't mix · tree and pragmatics
description: Ducks spread oil from a gland near the tail over their feathers, so water runs off; that is why they preen so much. Who acts: Ducks, water, that. A sentence of the lesson «Oil and water, and things that won't mix» of the chemistry course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the prag
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/7-oil-and-water/15/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [Chemistry](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/) / [Oil and water, and things that won't mix](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/7-oil-and-water/) / 15

# Oil and water, and things that won't mix, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Ducks spread oil from a gland near the tail over their feathers, so water runs off; that is why they preen so much.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Ducks, water, that · **What happens:** spread, run off, be, preen · **To what, where:** oil, gland

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Oil and water, and things that won't mix» 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 (Ducks, water, that), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:chemistry:007-oil-and-water.lesson:15
# text = Ducks spread oil from a gland near the tail over their feathers, so water runs off; that is why they preen so much.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = chemistry
# lesson = 007-oil-and-water.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	Ducks	duck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	spread	spread	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	oil	oil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	from	from	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	gland	gland	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	near	near	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
10	over	over	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
15	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	runs	run	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
17	off	off	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	21	nsubj	_	_
20	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
21	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	2	parataxis	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	preen	preen	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	acl:relcl	_	_
24	so	so	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	much	much	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	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 | **spread** | present | Ducks | oil |  | a gland near the tail |  | over ducks's feathers | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent oil=Theme over feather=Destination |
| 2 | **run off** | present | water |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | present | that |  |  |  |  | why *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **preen** | present | ducks *= duck* |  |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:007-oil-and-water.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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Oil and water, and things that won't mix, 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/7-oil-and-water/14/)
- next →: [Oil and water, and things that won't mix, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/7-oil-and-water/16/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/7-oil-and-water/)