---
title: A toothbrush cleans the fronts, backs and tops of the teeth, but it… — Flossing and caring for your teeth · tree and pragmatics
description: A toothbrush cleans the fronts, backs and tops of the teeth, but it cannot reach the narrow gaps between them, so once a day we clean there with floss or a small brush made for the gaps. Who acts: toothbrush, we. A sentence of the lesson «Flossing and caring for your teeth» of the everyday course of
---

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# Flossing and caring for your teeth, sentence 0

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A toothbrush cleans the fronts, backs and tops of the teeth, but it cannot reach the narrow gaps between them, so once a day we clean there with floss or a small brush made for the gaps.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** toothbrush, we · **What happens:** clean, not reach, make · **To what, where:** fronts, narrow gaps, small brush

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Flossing and caring for your teeth» of the everyday 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 (toothbrush, we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:074-flossing-and-caring-for-teeth.lesson:0
# text = A toothbrush cleans the fronts, backs and tops of the teeth, but it cannot reach the narrow gaps between them, so once a day we clean there with floss or a small brush made for the gaps.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 074-flossing-and-caring-for-teeth.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): R7-rel-agree ×1
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	toothbrush	toothbrush	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	cleans	clean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	fronts	front	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	backs	back	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	tops	top	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	teeth	tooth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	narrow	narrow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	gaps	gap	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	_
22	between	between	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nmod	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
25	so	so	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	_
26	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	30	advmod	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl:unmarked	_	_
29	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
30	clean	clean	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:conj
31	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	30	advmod	_	_
32	with	with	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
33	floss	floss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	_
34	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	37	cc	_	_
35	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
36	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	37	amod	_	_
37	brush	brush	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	conj	_	_
38	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	37	acl	_	_
39	for	for	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
40	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	41	det	_	_
41	gaps	gap	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	38	obl	_	_
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **clean** | present | a toothbrush | the fronts and backs and tops of the teeth |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent front=Patient |
| 2 | **not** **reach** | can | toothbrush | the narrow gaps |  |  |  | between gaps *= gap* | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent gap=Theme |
| 3 | **clean** | present | we |  |  | there | day | with floss or a small brush; once *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent with floss=Instrument |
| 4 | **make** | participle |  | a small brush *not said here* |  |  |  | for the gaps | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP P.asset»: agent=Agent for gap=Asset |

<!-- .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:everyday:074-flossing-and-caring-for-teeth.lesson:0`.

**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): 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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